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BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 


BOOKS  AND  THEIR 
WRITERS 


BY 


S.  p.  B.  MAIS 

Author  of 
"  From  Shaketpeare  to  0.  Henry  " 


"  The  secret — which  is  also  the  reward — of  aU 
learning  lies  in  the  passion  for  the  search  " 


NEW   YORK 
DODD,   MEAD  AND   COMPANY 

1920 


PrinUd  in  Great  Britain  at  the  Complete  Press 
West  Sorwood 


PR. 


TO 
MY  WIFE 


2037373 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Preface  9 


PART  I :   NOVELISTS  AND  NO\^LS 

I.  Introductory  18 

II.  CoMPTON  Mackenzie  19 

III.  Norman  Douglas  27 

IV.  Frank  Swinnerton  87 
V.  Stephen  MgKenna  45 

VI.  Jane  Austen  51 

VII.  Clemence  Dane  07 

VIII.  Dorothy  Richardson  76 


PART  II:   POETRY  AND  POETS 

I.  Introductory  89 

II.  J.  C.  Squire  114 

III.  Siegfried  Sassoon  181 

IV.  Robert  Nichols  188 
V.  Dora  Sigerson  146 

VI.  Chinese  Poetry  154 


8  CONTENTS 

PART  III :    BOOKS  IN  GENERAL 

PAQK 

I.  Eminent  Victorians  167 

II.  Trivia  192 

III.  "  Q  "  AS  Critic  200 

IV.  Alice  Meynell  as  Critic  281 
V.  Lafcadio  Hearn  242 

VI.  Sir  Edward  Cook  277 

VII.  Set  Down  In  Malice  800 

VIII.  The  Humour  of  "  Saki  "  811 

IX.  Women  881 


PREFACE 

Let  me  make  it  quite  clear  at  the  outset :  I  have 
laid  no  claims  to  be  thought  a  literary  critic  :  the 
following  papers  are  not  studies  in  literature.  While 
other  men  were  more  healthily  and  patriotically  em- 
ployed in  digging  up  their  allotments  and  gardens, 
for  physical  reasons  I  was  forced  to  confine  my- 
self to  the  garden  of  my  mind,  by  no  means  a 
fruitful  soil :  I  have  but  little  creative  genius : 
abandoning  this  barren  task  I  then  began  to  dig 
in  the  gardens  of  other  men's  minds  :  this  book 
is  the  result.  All  I  have  sought  to  do  has  been 
to  convey  some  of  the  pleasure  I  have  gained  from 
desultory  reading  of  all  kinds  during  the  last  few 
years,  to  those  who  take  the  trouble  to  turn  these 
pages  :  the  art  of  criticism  is  not  mine.  I  have  not 
obtruded  my  own  personality  more  than  was  abso- 
lutely necessary.  I  have  merely  walked  about  pro- 
lific vineyards  and  orchards  and  plucked  a  cluster  of 
grapes  here,  a  plum  there,  to  entice  you  to  share 
some  of  my  golden  pleasures.  That  I  have  missed 
some  of  the  best  mil  be  obvious  to  any  one  who 
looks  at  the  chapter-headings  ;  that  I  have  included 
much  imripe  and  indigestible,  or  over-ripe  and  putrid 
fruit  I  beg  leave  to  deny.  There  was  so  much  that 
was  very  good  that  I  could  have  filled  another  volume 
with  ease.  Some  of  these  essays  have  already 
appeared  in  print.  For  permission  to  include  them 
in  this  volume  I  wish  to  thank  the  editors  of  The 
Fortnightly  Review  and  To-day. 


PART  I 
NOVELISTS  AND  NOVELS 


"  Oh,  if  s  only  a  novel .  .  .  only  some 
work  in  which  the  greatest  powers  of 
the  mind  are  displayed,  in  which  the 
most  thorough  knowledge  of  human 
nature,  the  happiest  delineations  of 
its  varieties,  the  liveliest  effusions  of 
wit  and  humour,  are  conveyed  to  the 
werld  in  the  best  chosen  language.'" 


I 

INTRODUCTORY 

I  HAVE  lately  read  a  book  by  W.  L.  George  (who 
appears  to  write  with  equal  facility  about 
everything)  on  the  Modem  Novel.  I  remember 
to  have  been  astounded  at  his  selection  of  authors  : 
now  that  I,  in  my  turn,  find  that  I  want  to  say  some- 
thing about  the  novel  I  can  already  hear  the  critic 
saying,  "  What  an  amazing  selection."  It  is  quite 
impossible  to  make  a  class  list.  It  is  like  the  competi- 
tion of  finding  out  which  is  the  best  of  Keats'  five 
Odes,  or  Shakespeare's  greatest  tragedy.  I  have  no 
favourite  author.  The  last  time  I  dared  to  write 
generally  of  the  modem  author  I  was  taken  to  task 
for  omitting  to  mention  Charles  Marriott.  It  never 
struck  my  critic  on  that  occasion,  I  suppose,  that 
there  are  writers  who  dare  not  talk  about  some 
things  because  the  temptation  to  fill  volume  after 
volume  would  be  so  strong.  There  are  moods  when 
Marriott's  are  the  only  novels  I  can  rely  on  to  restore 
me  to  mental  health :  I  know  no  man  who  can 
make  the  other  sex  live  as  he  makes  it  live  :  do  you 
remember  the  passage  in  Mrs  Alemere's  Elopement 
where  Dick  meets  Evelyn  again,  loving  her  body, 
she  loving  him  not  at  all :  "  She  must  despise  him 
for  his  self-restraint  when  she  was  under  his  protec- 
tion "  ?  It  is  a  terribly  merciless  rending  of  the  veil. 
I  love  Marriott  for  his  epigrammatic  style,  his  vivid 
grasp  of  essentials  both  in  scenic  descriptions  and  in 
analysis  of  character  :   I  love  him  for  his  "  all-round- 

13 


14  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

ness."  He  is  as  much  at  home  with  successful  busi- 
ness men,  scientists,  architects,  engineers,  and  miners 
as  he  is  with  artists  and  philosophers.  I  love  him 
for  his  cleanness,  his  mental  sanity,  his  gospel  of  "  To 
take  by  leaving,  to  hold  by  letting  go."  It  is  cer- 
tainly a  mote,  a  blemish  that  he  should  so  persistently 
dwell  on  drunkenness  in  women,  and  the  necessity 
for  divorce  in  the  life  of  every  man,  but  I  Uke  a  man 
who  can  courageously  rush  into  the  market-place 
with  a  gospel  of  this  sort :  "  There  is  a  free  love 
which  is  neither  the  ludicrous  complication  of  mar- 
riage generally  understood  by  the  term,  nor  a  foolish 
denial  or  cowardly  evasion  of  sex."  I  love  him  for 
his  sense  of  beauty  and  goodness,  his  gentleness  and 
kindly  humour  .  .  .  but  I  daren't  pick  him  out  as 
a  subject  for  a  special  article.  It  would  occupy  too 
much  space.  I  have  instead  made  a  quite  arbitrary 
selection  :  I  could  have  lamented  at  great  length  on 
the  disappearance  of  the  Arnold  Bennett  who  gave 
us  The  Old  Wives*  Tale,  and  the  appearance  of  the 
expert  journalist  who  gave  us  The  Pretty  Lady  and 
The  Roll-Call,  both  of  which  exhibit  great  talent,  but 
no  genius  whatever.  I  could  have  pined  (for  pages) 
for  the  Wells  of  Mr  Polly,  Kipps,  and  Love  and  Mr 
Lewisham,  and  become  angry  that  so  great  a  humorist 
should  have  devoted  to  the  Deity,  politics,  sex,  and 
education,  what  should  have  been  devoted  to  scientific 
prophecy  and  the  comedy  of  the  draper's  assistant : 
I  could  have  used  up  my  vocabulary  of  eulogies  on 
the  trilogies  of  J.  D.  Beresford  and  Oliver  Onions, 
and  wondered  sorrowfully  why  the  former  should  have 
condescended  to  God's  Counterpoint,  and  the  latter  to 
write  reconstruction  novels  like  The  New  Moon. 

I   very   nearly   decided   to   give   Alec   Waugh   an 
article  to  himself,  but  I  am  almost  alone  in  not  con- 


INTRODUCTORY  «  15 

sidering  The  Loom  of  Youth  a  book  of  surpassing 
genius.  The  Prisoners  of  Mainz  is  ever  so  much 
better ;  the  former  was  all  stale  news  to  me  as  I  am 
a  schoolmaster  :  it  shows  great  powers  of  observation, 
but  I  get  quickly  tired  of  descriptions  of  games  and 
caricatures  of  masters.  Arnold  Lunn  and  St  John 
Lucas  are  much  more  artistic  in  their  pictures  of  school 
life :  they  are  so  much  less  heavy.  But  it  would  be 
hard  to  exaggerate  the  importance  of  Alec  Waugh  :  he 
has  made  education  almost  as  popular  a  subject  as 
spiritualism,  which  is  all  to  the  good  .  .  .  and  by  writing 
it  he  cleared  the  way  for  himself.  He  now  has  acquired 
humour,  lightness,  geniality,  and  self-confidence. 

I  could  have  written  much  on  the  childlike  naivetd 
of  Irene  McLeod  :  Graduation  is  one  of  the  few  novels 
of  the  present  time  which  exalts  love  in  its  simplest, 
most  honourable  sense.  Miss  M.  Fulton,  too,  is  a 
new  writer  who  achieved  in  Blight  such  a  success 
that  I  would  willingly  call  attention  to  its  merits  at 
greater  length .  Then  there  are  Middleton  Murry  with 
his  very  modern  minute  psychological  study  of  moods 
and  thoughts  in  Still  Life,  and  Hugh  Walpole,  the 
eclectic,  who  lives  entirely  in  and  for  his  art.  I 
suppose  if  I  were  really  compelled  to  place  my  candi- 
dates in  order  of  merit  I  should  hesitate  for  a  long 
time  before  deposing  Hugh  Walpole  from  the  premier 
position,  partly  because  he  is  interested  in  the  things 
that  interest  me  more  than  any  others.  In  Mr  Perrin 
and  Mr  Traill  he  started  a  fashion  whereby  it  was 
no  longer  considered  impossible  to  include  school- 
masters in  a  novel.  In  The  Dark  Forest  and  The 
Secret  City  he  made  me  even  more  anxious  to 
know  something  of  that  fascinating  enigma,  Russia, 
than  I  had  been,  after  labouring  for  years  among 
its  native  writers.     The  Secret  City  is,  after  Forti- 


16  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WTIITERS 

iude,  the  modern  novel  I  would  select  for  my  desert 
island.  Walpole's  pictures  of  Russian  cities,  of 
Russian  home-life,  of  the  revolutions,  are  master- 
pieces and  remain  as  concrete  images  in  the  mind 
long  after  the  book  is  read.  And  .  .  .  who  can 
depict  so  well  the  problems  that  after  all  matter  so 
much  more  to  us  than  anything  else  in  the  world  .  .  . 
our  relations  with  our  fellows  ?  "  It's  no  use  trying 
to  keep  out  of  things.  As  soon  as  they  want  to  put 
you  in — you're  in.  The  moment  you're  bom,  you're 
done  for."  He  realises  the  price  at  which  a  man 
achieves  freedom  :  how  one  delivers  one's  soul  over 
to  another  human  being  and  is  thenceforward  lost. 
"  Love's  always  selfish,  always  cruel  to  others,  always 
means  trouble,  sorrow,  and  disappointment.  But  it's 
worth  it,  even  when  it  brings  complete  disaster.  Life 
isn't  life  without  it."  Nothing  worth  having  can  be 
achieved  without  paying  enonnously  .  .  .  and  I  love 
Hugh  Walpole  because  he  can  both  face  the  fact  and 
reckon  the  cost,  and  yet  count  love  as  worth  the 
horrors  it  brings.  He  sees  life  simply  as  a  training- 
ground  for  the  immortal  soul.  "  The  secret  of  the 
mystery  of  life  is  the  isolation  that  separates  every 
man  from  his  fellow — ^the  secret  of  dissatisfaction, 
too  ;  and  the  only  purpose  in  life  is  to  reaUse  that 
isolation,  and  to  love  one's  fellow-man  because  of  it, 
and  to  show  one's  own  courage,  like  a  flag  to  which 
other  travellers  may  wave  their  answer  .  .  .  life  is 
a  tragedy  to  every  Russian  simply  because  the  daUy 
roimd  is  forgotten  by  him  in  his  pursuit  of  an  ultimate 
meaning.  We  in  the  West  have  learnt  to  despise 
ultimate  meanings  as  unpractical  and  rather  priggish 
things."  Hugh  Walpole  realises,  as  few  other  writers 
realise  how  the  power  of  passion  sweeps  away  all 
obstacles  injts  frenzy  to  achieve  its  object  :   he  has 


INTRODUCTORY  17 

penetrated  to  the  secret  city  which  is  in  every  man's 
heart  :  "I  love  him  so  that  I  am  bhnd  for  him  and 
deaf  for  him  and  dead  for  him.  .  .  .  Before  it  is  too 
late — I  wafit  it,  I  want  him,  I  want  happiness." 
Such  is  the  poignant  cry  of  the  Russian  woman  un- 
happily married,  who  finds  in  the  stolid  Cambridge 
"  Rugger  Blue  "  the  firmness  and  solidity  and  power 
which  every  woman  worships  more  than  anything 
else  in  the  world.  I  could  write  at  length  of  John 
Galsworthy's  sensitive  heart,  of  Miss  G.  B.  Stem's 
insight  into  the  problems  of  the  sexes  ;  I  should  like 
to  extol  Ralph  Straus's  strong,  trenchant,  healthy 
point  of  view,  and  Joseph  Conrad's  Romantic  realism. 
Leonard  Merrick's  sad  irony  should  receive  its  due 
share  of  praise,  and  Sheila  Kaye  Smith's  masterly 
pictures  of  Sussex  should  not  pass  unnoticed.  .  .  . 
I  suppose  there  are  not  less  than  fifty  writers 
whose  books  one  eagerly  devours  year  by  year.  At 
one  moment  we  are  intrigued  by  the  queer  artistry 
of  James  Joyce;  the  next,  and  Gilbert  Cannan's 
clear,  hard,  polished  intellect  seems  to  us  the  most 
desirable  art  in  the  world.  The  war  is  over,  and  those 
domestic  problems  which  once  seemed  very  small 
when  compared  with  the  immanence  of  death  and 
the  grandeur  of  male  friendships,  now  loom  as  large  as 
ever.  One  thing  only  we  require  of  those  who  write, 
that  they  shall  be  as  Tchekov  says,  "  humanists  to 
the  very  tips  of  their  fingers."  They  must  find  life 
interesting,  they  must  be  insatiably  curious,  they 
must  write  of  people  and  things  as  they  see  them. 
They  must  have  a  point  of  view,  and  they  should 
inspire  us  with  courage  and  enable  us  to  face  our 
own  difficulties.  There  would  appear  to  be  a  sharp 
cleavage  between  the  novels  that  matter,  those  which 
make  us  think,  and  attempt  to  present  us  with  a 

B 


18  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

picture  of  actualities,  and  those  myriads  of  others 
which  don't  pretend  to  do  more  than  amuse.  There 
is  no  question  that  the  world  is  made  the  better  by 
those  energetic  spirits  who  feel  called  upon  to  commit 
to  paper  the  thoughts  that  surge  through  them,  the 
experiences  through  which  they  or  their  imaginations 
pass.  Novel-writing  is  no  easy  task  :  and  few  things 
make  one  so  speechless  with  rage  as  the  stupidity  of 
those  blind  readers  who  write  "  vulgar  rubbish " 
across  a  page  of  Swinnerton,  or  "  the  man  with  the 
muck-rake  "  on  the  title-page  of  Galsworthy.  Writers 
have  to  dive  deep  into  the  bed  of  himianity  and 
bring  up  whatever  they  find  :  it  is  only  the  exception 
who  returns  with  the  pearl.  But  it  requires  courage 
to  dive.  The  text  on  the  cover  of  the  Quarterly  has 
been  made  the  excuse  of  every  mud-flinger  for  the 
last  hundred  years.  It  is  time  we  realised  that  the 
best  kind  of  criticism  is  pityingly  silent  over  poverty 
of  thought  and  diction,  and  lavish  of  praise  where 
praise  can  honestly  be  given.  There  is  so  much  that 
is  good  that  we  need  never  read  anything  else.  It 
is  obvious  that  we  are  not  by  any  manner  of  means 
unanimous  in  our  definition  of  what  is  good,  but 
everybody  (except  George  Moore)  finds  some  reward 
in  reading  Shakespeare,  so  I  maintain  that  90  per 
cent,  of  those  who  read  this  book  will  be  rewarded 
if  they  read  the  works  of  the  authors  mentioned  in 
it.  They  are  not  all  easy.  It  is  as  hard  to  concen- 
trate on  to  Dorothy  Richardson  as  it  is  on  to  a  piece 
of  Latin  or  Greek  unseen,  but  the  reward  is  great 
(sometimes)  in  proportion  to  the  labour  we  bestow. 
It  costs  but  little  effort  to  follow  the  Baroness  Orczy, 
and  the  recompense  is  slender ;  Conrad  and  Henry 
James  demand  the  same  mental  alertness  in  their 
readers  as  they  themselves  are  possessed  of. 


II 

THE  GENIUS  OF  COMPTON  MACKENZIE 

IN  Sylvia  Scarlett  Compton  Mackenzie  carries  on 
his  Balzac  scheme  of  economical  selection  by 
continuing  the  histories  of  men  and  women 
whose  acquaintance  we  have  already  made  in 
earlier  books.  In  attempting,  therefore,  a  general 
survey  of  his  work  one  is  bound  to  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  his  first  book,  The  Passionate  Elope- 
ment, was  simply  a  magnificent  tour  de  force,  an 
exquisite  "  essay  in  literary  bravura,"  a  piece  of 
loveliness  thrown  off  by  the  artist  as  a  young  man 
while  he  was  feeling  his  way. 

The  six  novels  which  followed  it  all  deal  with  the 
same  little  coterie  of  principals,  and  there  is  no 
reason  why  the  number  should  not  be  extended  in- 
definitely.    He  himself  computes  it  at  thirty. 

There  is  no  question  of  our  getting  tired  of  them, 
once  we  take  into  account  certain  definite  limitations 
that  are  peculiar  to  Mackenzie's  genius.  In  the  first 
place,  he  possesses  a  memory  which  is  almost  Macau- 
layesque.  I  know  of  no  author  who  can  re-create 
our  earliest  years  so  accurately  or  so  sympatheti- 
cally :  unfortunately  this  leads  him  into  the  error 
of  believing  implicitly  in  a  gospel  he  has  made 
his  own  :  "  Childhood  makes  the  instrument,  youth 
tunes  the  strings,  and  early  manhood  plays  the 
melody." 

"  I  very  much  doubt  if  any  impressions  after 
eighteen   or   nineteen   help   the   artist,"    says   Guy. 

19 


20  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WTIITERS 

"  All  experience  after  that  age  is  merely  valuable  for 
maturing  and  putting  into  proportion  the  more  vital 
experiences  of  childhood." 

Wordsworthian,  but  not  true.  Nevertheless,  Mac- 
kenzie beheves  it,  and  so  we  have  to  listen  to  an 
interminable  noise  of  hanmiering  at  the  instrument 
followed  by  an  extravagantly  long  tuning-up  before 
the  play  begins.  In  spite  of  the  accuracy  with  which 
he  reveals  to  us  again  the  golden  hours  of  our  infancy, 
the  thick-sighted  ambition  of  our  youth,  %vith  its 
quick-changing  rhapsodies,  and  the  unhealthy  imagina- 
tion of  our  adolescence,  we  get  bored.  The  curtain- 
raiser  is  too  long  :   the  adventure  is  all  prelude. 

His  second  limitation  is  even  worse  !  He  seems 
quite  unable  to  create  a  decent  man.  Alan  can  at 
least  play  cricket,  but  none  of  his  other  "  heroes  " 
has  any  positive  virtue.  Maurice  is  as  imstable  as 
Reuben :  Jenny's  exquisite  character  crystallises 
itself  into  "  commonness "  in  his  eyes  when  he 
attempts  to  get  her  into  proper  perspective  by  leav- 
ing her  :  Guy  is  so  inert  that  he  allows  trifling  debts 
to  destroy  one  of  the  most  perfect  idylls  in  fiction  : 
he  is  molluscous,  jejune,  made  up  of  shreds  and 
patches  of  other  men's  cUches :  "  I  must  be  free  if 
I'm  going  to  be  an  artist,"  he  repeats,  parrot-like, 
to  Pauline,  understanding  not  a  whit  what  he  means. 
This  is,  if  you  please,  the  man  who  was  talked  of  as 
"  the  most  brilliant  man  of  his  time  at  Oxford." 

There  are  many  absurdly  impossible  incidents  in 
all  these  novels,  but  there  is  nothing  quite  so  farcically 
surprising  as  Michael  Fane's  "  First "  in  History. 
Much  might  be  forgiven  him  if  he  had  brains  ;  he  has 
nothing  but  a  maudlin  affection  for  Don  Quixote,  an 
unhealthy  taste  for  the  more  licentious  classics  and 
low  life,  a  sentimental  attitude  to  reUgion,  and  an 


COMPTON  MACKENZIE  21 

astounding  ignorance  of  life.  We  are  led  to  believe 
that  Sylvia  in  the  end  settles  down  after  her  picar- 
esque life  with  this  nincompoop  for  her  husband  : 
if  our  guess  is  correct  she  might  just  as  well  have 
remained  with  her  "  thoroughly  negative "  Philip 
(also  an  Oxford  man). 

It  is  as  if  Mackenzie  definitely  set  out  to  prove 
that  a  University  turned  out  all  its  pupils  cut  to 
pattern  .  .  .  and  what  a  pattern  it  is  !  "  Shallow, 
shallow  ass  that  I  am,"  plaintively  bleats  Maurice 
with  his  usual  insincere  self-depreciation,  "  incom- 
petent, dull,  and  unimaginative  block."  That  exactly 
describes  them  all.  One  other  trait  they  have  in 
common  which  finally  places  them  beyond  the  pale 
of  our  favour.  They  are,  without  exception,  incor- 
rigible snobs.  One  could  forgive  their  interminable 
empty  chatter,  their  futility,  even  their  woodenness ; 
but  their  appalling  self-complacency  destroys  any 
possible  interest  on  our  part  in  their  welfare.  They 
have  money,  therefore  they  are  the  salt  of  the  earth. 
I  have  seen  Mackenzie  compared  with  Thackeray,  for 
what  reason  I  cannot  fathom.  But  this  gallery  of 
callow  undergraduates  might  well  be  included  in  the 
modem  Book  of  Snobs. 

Lastly  we  come  to  the  limitation  of  label.  It  is 
customary  to  classify  all  modem  authors.  Mackenzie 
has  been  hailed  as  the  leader  of  the  "  realistic  " 
school.  This  is  no  place  to  enter  into  a  discussion 
on  the  connotation  of  critical  labels,  but  if  "  realistic  " 
is  meant  to  be  synonymous  with  "  actual,"  Mackenzie 
is  no  more  a  realist  than  Dickens  was.  He  has  the 
comic  spirit  much  too  fully  developed  (thank  Gk)d 
he  possesses  what  none  of  his  heroes  has,  a  sense  of 
humour)  to  depict  life  as  he  sees  it.  With  a  gorgeous 
abandon  he  gives  his  nimble  wit  free  play  to  carica- 


22  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WTIITERS 

ture  :  he  has  no  gospel  to  preach,  no  point  of  view  to 
present :  he  merely  strives  to  entertain  .  .  .  and  that 
he  is  the  most  diverting  prestidigitator  and  mirth- 
provoking  showman  of  our  age  Poor  Relations  con- 
vincingly proves. 

Unfortunately,  we  don't  expect  Lord  George  Sangers 
to  be  artists.  Compton  Mackenzie  is  an  artist  to  the 
finger-tips,  and  he  has  therefore  been  persistently 
misunderstood.  Disappointment  lies  in  store  for 
those  befogged  critics  who  think  that  Compton  Mac- 
kenzie is  of  the  family  of  Hugh  Walpole,  J.  D.  Beres- 
ford,  or  Gilbert  Cannan. 

Is  it  after  all  a  limitation  not  to  belong  to  the 
introspective  school  ?  The  riddle  of  the  universe  is 
not  necessarily  to  be  solved  by  the  novelist.  ...  Is 
it  a  crime  to  revert  to  the  tradition  of  Tom  Jones  ? 
Mackenzie  is  in  the  direct  line  of  Fielding.  Is 
not  that  enough  ?  Why  complain  that  he  falls  short 
of  an  achievement  which  he  never  set  out  to  attain  ? 

So  much  for  limitations.  Wliat  has  this  wayward 
genius,  then,  to  offer  if  he  has  no  gospel,  and  can't 
paint  an  endurable  well-bred  man  ?  In  the  first 
place,  he  is  a  consummate  architect.  Young  modem 
novelists  for  the  most  part  are  so  taken  up  mth 
analysing  their  emotions,  and  sifting  their  psycho- 
logical experiences,  that  they  have  eliminated  form 
and  technique  altogether.  They  rather  pride  them- 
selves on  their  lawlessness.  Mackenzie  plans  on  a 
colossal  scale,  but  rarely  makes  a  mistake :  his 
edifice  is  not  only  beautiful  (few  living  writers  have 
quite  such  a  feeling  for  the  best  word  :  his  sentences 
are  exquisitely  balanced,  pellucidly  clear,  and  rhyth- 
mical), but  it  is  utilitarian.  He  has  great  inventive 
powers  ;  he  is  always  deeply  stirred  by  beautiful 
things,  and  can  convey  the  essence  of  an  impression 


COMPTON  MACKENZIE  28 

mor«  economically  and  surely  than  most  of  hi*  eon- 
temporaries. 

Guy  and  Pauline  is  so  beautiful  that  we  are  almost 
drugged  by  the  sweetness  of  it.  Every  season  of  the 
year,  every  flower,  and  every  changing  light  is  seized 
and  put  on  to  paper  perfectly.  When  he  sets  out 
deliberately  to  paint  a  landscape,  whether  it  be  of  a 
Cotswold  village  with  its  cobbles  overgrown  with 
grass,  of  Cornwall  in  December  with  its  blue  and 
purple  veronicas  and  almond-scented  gorse,  or  Ana- 
sirene  with  its  anemones  splashed  out  like  wine  upon 
the  green  com,  and  red-beaded  cherry-trees  throwing 
shadows  on  the  tawny  wheat,  we  sit  dumb  as  before 
a  picture  by  a  great  master. 

It  is  the  presence  of  beauty  that  never  fails  to  show 
Mackenzie  at  his  best.  He  is  one  of  Nature's  great " 
interpreters — and  I  am  not  sure  that  he  is  not  woman's 
best  interpreter.  Jenny  is  not  the  only  pearl  to  be 
cast  before  swine.  Pauline,  Sylvia,  each  in  her  own 
individual  way,  is  equally  precious  and  adorable. 

We  have  seen  two  of  the  inimitable  trio  giving  up 
their  boundless  maiden  treasures,  in  each  case  to  a 
puppet — and  in  each  case  so  deftly  and  delicately 
has  their  passion  been  portrayed  that  we  can 
think  of  no  parallel  outside  the  pages  of  Richard 
Feverel. 

Mackenzie  has  an  uncanny  insight  into  the  hearts 
of  his  heroines.  Women  do  shower  their  love  on  to 
the  most  undeserving  men.  It  is  quite  true  that 
Pauline  will  never  forget  Guy  ;  she  is  like  the  nymph 
on  the  Grecian  Urn  .  ,  .  :  it  was  quite  in  keeping 
with  passionate,  heart-broken  Jenny's  temperament 
that  she  should  give  herself  to  a  dirty  rotter  when  she 
found  Maurice  wanting,  though  I  can  never  reconcile 
myself  to  her  marriage ;    I  was  not  at  all  surprised 


24  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

at  Sylvia  Scarlett  becoming  a  temporary  prostitute 
after  leaving  Philip. 

It  is  partly  because  they  are  so  virginal  in  cha- 
racter, partly  because  they  so  hate  men  to  make  love 
to  them,  that  (when  the  flame  is  kindled)  these 
heroines  descend  a  little  lower  than  conventional 
angels  on  being  scorned.  Mackenzie  is  never  happier 
than  when  he  is  transcribing  the  dialogues  of  his 
women  :  one  can  hear  their  very  accents  (if  we  are 
not  snobs  they  do  not  grate  on  our  polished  ears), 
and  we  fall  desperately  in  love  not  with  their  physical 
beauty  so  much  as  with  their  wonderful  vivacity, 
never-failing  spirits,  and  extraordinary  bonhomie. 

The  tang  of  bitterness  on  Sylvia's  tongue  adds  to 
her  charms.  These  are  the  lips  we  wish  to  hear  at 
carnival-time  (when  we  drop  the  mask  of  our  respect- 
ability) whispering  "  Viens  done  .  .  .  jet'aime."  We 
need  no  second  invitation.  From  the  crowd  of  Pierrots 
we  draw  our  lily-white  Columbine,  and  cease  from 
banging  other  roysterers  on  the  head  with  bladders  : 
we  set  out  on  an  amazingly  incredible  crusade,  and 
mix  with  the  wives  of  lavatory-attendants,  decadent 
artists,  maniacs  who  think  that  they  are  inside  out, 
Treacherites,  priests,  murderers,  harlots,  pseudo- 
Emperors  of  Byzantium,  chorus-girls,  and  procurators 
...  we  are  whirled  from  the  Fulham  Road  through 
Granada,  Morocco,  Brussels,  the  United  States,  to 
Buenos  Ayres  ;  from  the  sylvan  quiet  of  Plashers' 
Mead  to  the  ugly  filthiness  of  Leppard  Street :  we 
meet  a  fresh  romance  at  every  turn  in  the  road.  If 
we  tire  of  one  set  of  companions  we  can  shake  them 
off  by  taking  the  first  'bus  that  passes. 

We  are  swept  along  so  fast  that  we  no  longer  feel 
any  astonishment  at  meeting  Maurice  in  the  heart  of 
Africa,  Arthur  Madden  in  a  third-rate  hotel  in  Sulphur- 


COMPTON  MACKENZIE  25 

ville,  U.S.A.,  or  think  it  strange  that  Sylvia,  Lily, 
and  Michael  should  find  one  another  again  at  a 
skating-rink  dance. 

Her  mother  would  go  mad  on  the  very  day  that 
Jenny  gave  herself  to  Danby  :  the  young  wife  of 
seventeen  in  such  a  world  may  well  know  her  Petronius 
and  Apuleius,  and  give  her  judgment  on  Aristophanes. 
The  secret  is  that  these  are  not  real  people  :  Mac- 
kenzie's is  not  the  world  as  we  know  it.  Everything 
is  possible  on  the  cinema,  and  Sylvia  Scarlett  is  the 
finest  film  I  have  ever  seen.  We  go  to  the  pictures 
to  get  away  from  realities,  to  indulge  our  senses  in 
a  riotous  phantasmagoria.  "  Let  the  young  enjoy 
theirselves,"  is  the  ever-recurring  cry  of  the  old  in 
all  these  books. 

"  If  you  could  break  loose  yourself  sometimes," 
cries  Sylvia  in  desperation  to  her  pedantic  husband, 
"  you'd  be  much  easier  to  live  with." 

The  sjTcns  call ;  like  Fra  Lippo  Lippi  we  begin  to 
tear  our  sheets  into  ropes  to  let  ourselves  down  from 
our  prison.  .  .  .  We,  too,  want  to  join  the  laughing 
nymphs  who  sing  to  the  guitar  beneath  our  window. 
Transported  for  the  moment  into  golden  asses,  we 
try  our  hand  at  the  game  only  to  be  rebuffed  sadly 
in  our  search  for  the  real  Sylvia — we  meet  no  daughters 
of  joy,  but  filles  de  joie,  no  "  lazy,  laughing,  languid 
Jenny,"  but  only  some  desperately  dull  drab  whose 
sole  resemblance  to  our  dream-heroine  is  that  she 
actually  calls  us  "  soppy  date  "  and  bids  us  "  ching- 
a-ling  "  if  our  purse  is  too  attenuated  to  glut  her 
desires. 

No — ^the  wise  man  will  be  content  to  take  Compton 
Mackenzie  at  his  own  valuation. 

Exquisite  figments  of  our  imagination,  Sylvia, 
Pauline,  and  Jenny,  dream-heroines  all,  we  love  you 


2«  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

far,  far  better  than  Michael,  Guy,  and  Maurice  ever 
could — ^but  we  are  no  Pygmalions — ^we  prefer  such 
Galateas  in  the  marble.  You  can  never  come  to  life 
however  hard  we  pray — and  we  are  realists  enough 
in  our  soberer  moments  to  breathe  quite  candidly, 
"  Who  cares  ?  " 

Compton  Mackenzie  is  our  vicarious  adventurer, 
our  vicarious  gallant :  we  owe  him  much  for  our 
vicarious  escapades  :  they  leave  no  nasty  taste  in 
the  mouth. 


Ill 

NORMAN  DOUGLAS 

WHEN  I  last  dared  to  give  voice  to  my 
personal  tastes  in  modern  fiction,  I  was 
taken  to  task  by  many  correspondents  for 
having  omitted  to  mention  the  favourites  of  others. 
In  many  cases  they  certainly  coincided  with  mine  : 
my  excuse  for  not  having  publicly  proclaimed  my 
affection  for  these  was  simply  due  to  lack  of  space. 
There  are  so  many  novelists  writing  to-day  whose 
works  I  infinitely  prefer  either  to  those  of  Thackeray 
or  Dickens  that  it  would  be  impossible  in  the  length 
of  one  essay  to  maintain  my  separate  reasons  for  them 
all.  I  tried  last  time  to  show  what  my  favourite 
authors  had  in  common  :  this  time  I  propose  rather 
to  let  each  one  manifest  his  good  qualities  individually, 
no  longer  as  members  of  a  school,  but  as  a  fresh 
delineator  of  life,  relying  on  no  precedent,  following 
in  the  footsteps  of  no  greater  contemporary.  First 
among  these  is  Mr  Norman  Douglas,  who  in  South 
Wind  has  produced  a  book  totally  unlike  any  other 
that  I  have  ever  read,  inimitably  humorous,  packed 
full  of  philosophy,  rich  with  irony,  and  interesting 
throughout.  That  it  completely  mystified  the  critic 
of  The  Daily  Mail,  who  self-complacently  asserted 
that  he  could  not  understand  what  it  was  all  about, 
may  be  in  itself  a  recommendation.  After  all,  what 
is  it  all  about  ?  An  island,  called  Nepenthe,  famous 
for  its  lobsters,  girls,  and-  sirocco,  which  last  plays 

quaint  tricks  on  the  temperaments  of  all  who  visit 

27 


28  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

it  or  live  there,  is  the  setting.  The  characters  are  all 
eccentric  in  so  far  as  they  do  not  conform  to  the 
common  standards  of  life. 

The  book  opens  with  a  description  of  the  landing 
thereon  of  a  sea-sick  colonial  bishop  and  a  philander- 
ing priest.  We  are  then  invited  to  follow  a  delicious 
biography  of  the  local  patron  saint,  Dodekanus,  so 
called,  perhaps,  because  he  met  his  death  by  being 
sawn  asunder  into  twelve  separate  pieces  while  bound 
between  two  flat  boards  of  palmwood :  another 
current  legend  has  it  that  he  owed  his  name  to  a 
missive  containing  the  two  words  Do  dekanus ;  give 
us  a  deacon.  The  grammar  is  faulty  because  of  the 
natives'  rudimentary  knowledge  of  Latin  :  they  had 
only  learnt  the  first  person  singular  and  the  nomina- 
tive case.  A  certain  Mr  Ernest  Eames  was  at  that 
time  making  it  his  life-mission  to  bring  up  to  date 
a  full  history  of  the  island  and  its  legends.  Of  him 
we  learn  that  "  it  was  not  true  to  say  that  he  fled 
from  England  to  Nepenthe  because  he  forged  his 
mother's  will,  because  he  was  arrested  while  picking 
the  pockets  of  a  lady  at  Tottenham  Court  Road 
Station,  because  he  refused  to  pay  for  the  upkeep  of 
his  seven  illegitimate  children,  because  he  was  involved 
in  a  flamboyant  scandal  of  unmentionable  nature  and 
unprecedented  dimensions,  because  he  was  detected 
while  trying  to  poison  the  rhinoceros  at  the  Zoo  with 
an  arsenical  bun,  because  he  strangled  his  mistress, 
because  he  addressed  an  almost  disrespectful  letter 
to  the  Primate  of  England,  beginning  '  My  good 
Owl ' — ^for  any  such  like  reason  ;  and  that  he  now 
remained  on  the  island  only  because  nobody  was  fool 
enough  to  lend  him  ten  pounds  requisite  for  a  ticket 
back  again." 

I  can  picture  the  face  of  The  Daily  Mail  critic. 


'  NORMAN  DOUGLAS  29 

fed  on  a  constant  diet  of  Guy  Thorne  and  William 
le  Queux,  worrying  over  this  passage,  vainly  search- 
ing for  a  plot.  The  colonial  bishop  fresh  from  con- 
verting Bitongos  (who  had  taken  to  the  Gospel  like 
ducks  to  water,  wearing  top-hats  at  Easter)  and 
M'Tezo  (who  filed  their  teeth,  ate  their  superfluous 
female  relations,  swopped  wives  every  new  moon, 
and  never  wore  a  stitch  of  clothes)  fell  quickly  in 
love  with  Nepenthe.  He  indulged  in  arguments  over 
educational  reform  with  Mr  Keith,  who  advocated 
the  introduction  of  sociology  and  jurisprudence  into 
the  school  curriculum,  and  the  abolition  of  practically 
all  the  existing  subjects  ;  he  revelled  in  the  endless 
colour-schemes  with  which  the  island  provided  him, 
houses  of  red  volcanic  tufa,  windows  aflame  with 
cacti  and  carnations,  slumberous  oranges  glowing  in 
courtyards,  roadways  of  lava — ^pitch-black,  skies  of 
impenetrable  blue.  He  met  Freddy  Parker,  the 
Napoleonic  President  of  the  local  club,  who  swindled 
every  one  right  and  left ;  Count  Caloveglia,  who  had 
"  faked  "  an  antique,  the  Locri  Faun,  that  he  sold 
for  thirty-five  thousand  francs  ;  the  Duchess,  who 
was  not  a  duchess  at  all ;  Miss  Wilberforce,  invariably 
clad  in  black,  who  indulged  immoderately  in  strong 
drink  and  denuded  herself  of  her  clothes  on  frequent 
occasions  ;  Denis  and  Marten,  young  rivals  for  the 
love  of  Angelina,  who  was  as  pretty  as  she  was 
sexual.  .  .  .  Each  and  all  of  these  chatter  at  random 
as  the  mood  takes  them,  sometimes  satirically  about 
our  national  vices  of  the  deification  of  strenuousness, 
our  failure  to  elevate  the  mind,  our  ridiculous  struggle 
with  the  elements,  and  incessant  bother  about  the 
soul. 

Denis  and  Marten  on  the  subject  of  chastity  ("a 
man  needn't  handle  everything  dirty  in  order  to  be 


80  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WTIITERS 

doubly  sure  about  it  ")  or  Ruskin  ("  Good  God  I  he's 
not  a  man  :  he's  an  emetic  ")  make  glorious  readmg. 
The  conflict  between  the  idealist  and  the  brutalitarian 
is  superbly  told. 

One  delicious  trait  of  Norman  Douglas  is  his 
habit  of  returning  to  a  subject  when  he  thinks  that 
it  can  still  amuse  us.  For  instance,  we  leam  later 
in  the  book  with  regard  to  Mr  Eames  that  "  it  was 
not  true  to  say  of  him  that  he  lived  on  Nepenthe 
because  he  was  wanted  by  the  London  police  for 
something  that  happened  in  Richmond  Park ;  that 
his  real  name  was  not  Eames  at  all,  but  Daniels  ; 
that  he  was  the  local  representative  of  an  international 
gang  of  white-slave  traffickers  ;  that  he  was  not  a 
man  at  all,  but  an  old  boarding-house  keeper  who 
had  very  good  reasons  for  assuming  the  male  disguise  ; 
that  he  was  a  morphinomaniac,  a  disfrocked  Baptist 
Minister,  a  pawnbroker  out  of  work,  a  fire- worshipper, 
a  Transylvanian,  a  bank  clerk  who  had  had  a  fall, 
a  decayed  jockey  who  disgraced  himself  at  a  subse- 
quent period  in  connexion  with  some  East-End 
Mission  for  reforming  the  boys  of  Bermondsey,  and 
then,  after  pawning  his  mother's  jewellery,  writing 
anonymous  threatening  letters  to  society  ladies  about 
their  husbands  and  vice  versa,  trying  to  blackmail 
Cabinet  Ministers,  and  tricking  poor  servant-girls  out 
of  their  hard-earned  wages  by  the  sale  of  sham 
Bibles,  was  luckily  run  to  earth  in  Piccadilly  Circus, 
after  an  exciting  chase,  with  a  forty-pound  salmon 
imder  his  arm,  wfiich  he  had  been  seen  to  lift  from  the 
window  of  a  Bond  Street  fishmonger.  All  these 
things,  and  a  good  many  more,  had  been  said.  Eames 
knew  it.     Kind  friends  had  seen  to  that." 

This  conscientious  historian  had  had  a  lapse  from 
giace  in  his  earlier  days  on  the  island,  and  that  was 


NORMAN  DOUGLAS  81 

to  fall  in  love  after  the  fashion  of  a  pure-minded 
gallant  gentleman  with  an  exuberant,  gluttonous 
dame  with  volcanic  eyes,  heavy  golden  bracelets,  the 
soupgon  of  a  moustache,  and  arms  as  thick  as  other 
people's  thighs.  She  was  known  as  the  ballon  capiif. 
She  had  nearly  seduced  Mr  Eames  into  marrying  her 
when  her  husband  turned  up,  and  Mr  Eames  luckily 
was  saved. 

Of  a  love  theme  there  is  but  little  in  the  book. 
One  of  IVIr  Marten's  many  escapades  in  this  direction 
may  be  taken  as  typical. 

"  O  ego  te  amare  tantum !  Nemo  sapit  nihil. 
Duchessa  in  barca  aquatica  cum  magna  compania. 
Redibit  tardissimo.  Niente  timor.  Amare  multis- 
simo !  Ego  morire  sine  te.  Morire.  Moriturus. 
Capito  ?  Non  capire  ?  Oh,  capire  be  blowed," 
Denis  heard  him  murmur,  "  tremolo  agitato,  con 
molto  sentimento "  to  Angelina  in  the  Cave  of 
Mercury.  There  is  more  about  drink  than  love  in 
this  Rabelaisian  medley.  The  picture  of  Miss  Wilber- 
force  singing  to  the  night- wind,  "  Oh,  Billy  had  a 
letter  for  to  go  on  board  a  ship,"  unlacing  and  un- 
buttoning the  while,  sticks  in  the  memory  more 
forcibly.  There  is  shrewd  philosophy  strewn  hither 
and  thither  for  those  who  patiently  allow  the  author 
to  pursue  his  own  path  and  do  not  hurry  him. 

"  Do  not  swim  with  the  crowd.  They  who  are 
all  things  to  their  neighbours,  cease  to  be  anything 
to  themselves.  Even  a  diamond  can  have  too  many 
facets.  Avoid  the  attrition  of  vulgar  minds,  keep 
your  edges  intact.  A  man  can  protect|himself  with 
fists  or  sword,  but  his  best  weapon  is  his  intellect. 
A  weapon  must  be  forged  in  the  fire. j.- The  fire,  in 
our  case,  is  Tribulation.  It  must  also  be  kept  un- 
tarnished.    If  the  mind  is  clean,  the  body  can  take 


82  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

care  of  itself.  Delve  deeply  :  not  too  deeply  into 
the  past,  for  it  may  make  you  derivative  ;  nor  yet 
into  yourself — it  will  make  you  introspective.  Delve 
into  the  living  world  and  strive  to  bind  yourself  to 
its  movements  by  a  chain  of  your  own  welding,"  he 
says  in  one  passage ;  in  another,  "  What  is  the 
unforgivable  sin  in  poetry  ?  Lack  of  candour." 
Again,  "  When  I  take  up  a  subject  this  is  what  I 
do  :  I  ask  myself :  '  What  has  this  fellow  got  to  say 
to  me  ?  '  " 

Occasionally  we  chance  upon  a  brilliant  sunrnimg 
up  of  the  defects  of  some  great  man,  as,  for  instance, 
this,  on  Samuel  Butler  :  "  Anything  to  escape  from 
reaUties — ^that  was  his  maxim.  He  personifies  the 
Revolt  from  Reason.  He  understood  the  teachings 
of  the  giants,  but  they  irked  him.  To  revenge  him- 
self he  laid  penny  crackers  imder  their  pedestals. 
His  whole  intellectual  fortune  was  spent  in  buying 
penny  crackers.  There  was  something  cheeky  and 
pre-adolescent  about  him — a  kind  of  virginal  ferocity. 
He  lacked  the  male  attributes  of  humility,  reverence, 
and  sense  of  proportion.  The  tail  of  a  cow  was  just 
as  important  to  him  as  the  tail  of  a  comet :  more 
important,  if  it  could  be  turned  into  a  joke.  Look 
at  the  back  of  his  mind  and  you  will  always  see  the 
same  thing  :    horror  of  a  fact." 

A  little  time  ago  I  applied  the  adjective  Rabe- 
laisian to  the  humour  revealed  in  this  book,  without, 
perhaps,  sufficient  justification.  In  chapter  xvi,  how- 
ever, in  the  list  of  the  many  fountains  of  Nepenthe, 
we  find  that  same  love  of  cataloguing  that  is  so 
prominent  a  characteristic  of  Rabelais. 

"  The  so-called  '  Old  Fountain  '  of  subacidulate  and 
vitriolique  flavour,  chalybeate  and  cataplastic,  was 
renowned  for  removing  stains  from  household  linen. 


NORMAN  DOUGLAS  88 

Taken  in  minute  doses,  under  medical  advice,  it 
gave  relief  to  patients  afflicted  with  the  wolfe,  noli 
me  tangere,  crudities,  Babylonian  itch,  globular  pem- 
phlegema,  fantastical  visions,  Koliks,  asthma,  and 
affections  of  the  heart." 

Of  another  we  learn  that  it  was  renowned  for  its 
calming  influence  on  all  who  suffered  from  abuse  of 
lechery  or  alcohol,  or  from  ingrowing  toe-nails. 

One  of  the  most  successful  chapters  in  the  book 
is  that  which  tells  of  the  "  good  old  Duke,"  Nepenthe's 
most  famous  ruler.  His  method  of  collecting  taxes 
was  a  marvel  of  simplicity.  Each  citizen  paid  what 
he  liked.  If  the  sum  proved  insufficient  he  was 
apprised  of  the  fact  next  morning  by  having  his  left 
hand  amputated  :  a  second  error  of  judgment  was 
rectified  by  the  mutilation  of  the  remaining  member. 

He  had  a  trick  of  casting  favourites  into  dungeons 
and  concubines  into  the  sea  that  endeared  him  to  his 
various  legitimate  spouses.  "  Nothing,"  he  used  to 
say,  "  nothing  ages  a  man  like  living  always  with 
the  same  woman." 

His  theories  on  education,  too,  were  unorthodox : 
he  limited  the  weekly  half-holidays  to  five,  and  sold 
to  the  slave-markets  of  Stamboul  and  Argier  by 
weight,  and  not  by  the  piece,  all  those  boys  and  girls 
who  talked  or  scribbled  on  blotting-pads  during  school 
hours.  "  Nose  after  ears  "  was  one  of  his  blithest 
watchwords.  "  A  good  salute  is  worth  a  good 
soldier,"  apropos  of  the  fact  that  the  firing  of  a  gun 
was  attended  with  some  considerable  danger. 

The  discussion  on  theology  between  the  Bishop 
and  Mr  Keith  is  peculiarly  delightful  by  reason  of 
the  imaginary  conversation  that  takes  place  on  the 
subject  of  the  Ten  Commandments  between  Moses 
(the  kindly  old  fellow  who  likes  people  to  have  as 

c 


84  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

much  harmless  amusement  as  possible)  and  Aaron 
(the  sour-faced  Puritan,  the  dyspeptic  old  ante- 
diluvian who  was  envious  of  his  neighbour's  pleasure, 
and  so  counted  all  pleasure  as  sin). 

A  comparison  between  the  Russian  temperament 
and  the  English  leads  to  the  following  acute  observa- 
tion : 

"  The  Russian  has  convictions,  but  no  principles. 
The  Englishman  has  principles,  but  no  convictions, 
he  obeys  the  laws  :  a  criminal  requires  imagination. 
He  prides  himself  on  his  immunity  from  vexatious 
imposts.  Yet  whisky,  the  best  quality  of  which  is 
worth  tenpence  a  bottle,  is  taxed  till  it  costs  five 
shillings  ;  tobacco  which  could  profitably  be  sold  at 
twopence  a  pound  goes  for  fivepence  an  ounce. 
Englishmen  will  submit  to  any  number  of  these 
extortions,  being  persuaded  that  such  things  are  for 
the  good  of  the  nation.  That  is  an  Englishman's 
method  of  procuring  happiness :  to  deny  himself 
pleasure  in  order  to  save  his  neighbour's  soul." 

To  return  for  a  moment  to  individual  characterisa- 
tions it  is  pleasant  to  envisage  the  person  of  Mrs 
Parker,  wife  of  the  infamous  Freddy,  from  the  follow- 
ing description  :  "  She  possessed  that  most  priceless 
of  all  gifts  :  she  believed  her  own  lies.  She  looked 
people  straight  in  the  face  and  spoke  from  her  heart ; 
a  falsehood,  before  it  left  her  lips,  had  grown  into  a 
flaming  truth."  Catholics  had  been  known  to  cross 
themselves  at  the  fertility  of  her  constructive  imagina- 
tion. Her  death  leads  to  some  aphorisms  on  the 
subject  of  mortality  on  the  part  of  Mr  Keith,  which 
I  find  it  hard  to  refrain  from  quoting.  But  I  must 
hurry  on,  past  the  story  of  the  marrowfats  and  the 
reason  why  so  many  American  women  are  as  flat 
as  boards,  in  front  and  behind  (a  hundred  guesses 


NORMAN  DOUGLAS  35 

would  leave  you  as  far  as  ever  from  the  truth  here) ; 
past  the  murder  of  Muhlen  (yes,  things  do  happen, 
even  on  lotus-eating  Nepenthe),  and  the  amazing 
speech  for  the  defence  of  the  supposed  criminal  by 
Don  Guistino  ("  He  had  a  mother :  he  had  no 
mother ")  to  St  Eulalia,  patroness  of  Nepenthean 
sailors.  St  Eulalia,  like  St  Dodekanus,  arrests  our 
attention.  She  was  born  in  1712,  took  the  vow  of 
chastity  at  the  age  of  two  years  and  eleven  months, 
never  washed,  nor  changed  her  underwear :  she  put 
baskets  of  sea-urchins  in  her  bed,  and  as  a  penance 
forced  herself  to  catch  the  legions  of  vermin  that 
infested  her  brown  blanket,  count  them,  separate  the 
males  from  the  females,  set  them  free  once  more,  and 
begin  over  again.  She  died  at  the  age  of  fourteen 
years  and  two  months.  Her  corpse  forthwith  became 
roseate  in  colour,  exhaled  a  delicious  odour  of  violets 
for  twenty  weeks,  and  performed  countless  miracles. 
On  dissection,  a  portrait  of  St  James  of  Compostella 
was  discovered  imbedded  in  her  liver. 

For  twelve  days  did  the  colonial  bishop  remain  on 
this  amazing  island  in  a  kind  of  merry  nightmare. 
There  was  something  bright  and  diabolical  in  the  tone 
of  the  place,  something  kaleidoscopic — a  frolicsome 
perversity.  Purifying,  at  the  same  time.  It  swept 
away  the  cobwebs.  It  gave  you  a  measure,  a  stan- 
dard, whereby  to  compute  earthly  affairs.  He  had 
carved  out  new  and  round  values  :  a  workable,  up- 
to-date  theory  of  life.  He  was  in  fine  trim.  His 
liver — ^he  forgot  that  he  ever  had  one.  Nepenthe  had 
done  him  good  all  round. 

And  so,  if  we  read  this  book  in  the  right  spirit, 
our  visit  to  Nepenthe  will  do  us  good  all  round. 

England,  after  the  tingling  realism  of  that  Mediter- 
ranean island,  may  weU  seem  parochial,  rather  dun, 


86  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WHITERS 

fireproof,  seaworthy ;  but  we  may  cease  to  be  so 
horrified  at  the  extreme  and  the  unconventional. 
Our  visit,  if  it  does  nothing  else,  ought  to  make  us 
more  tolerant. 

On  one  reader,  at  any  rate,  it  has  had  the  effect 
of  wishing  for  more  so  strongly  that,  in  spite  of  the 
generous  fare  of  464  closely  printed  pages  given  in 
this  voliune,  he  prays  night  and  day  that  Mr  Douglas 
may  continue  for  the  rest  of  his  life  to  write  down 
all  that  he  knows  about  his  Treasure  Island.  For 
surely  its  treasure  is  inexhaustible.  This  book  has 
no  beginning  and  no  end.  It  just  stops  when  the 
author  thinks  he  has  said  enough  for  the  moment. 
But  let  him  not  imagine  that  he  said  enough  for  all 
time.  I  for  one  could  go  on  reading  about  Nepenthe 
were  the  book  as  long  as  the  Encyclopcedia  Britannicay 
but  then  I  am  fond  of  himiour,  and  hiunour  in  our 
literature  is  rare  indeed. 


IV 

FRANK  SWINNERTON 

MR  SWINNERTON  has  already  nine  novels  to 
his  credit,  all  of  them  masterpieces  of  style, 
and  is  still  comparatively  unknown.  Yet  he 
is  as  well  able  to  reproduce  the  atmosphere  of  life  in 
the  successful  and  unsuccessful  suburbs  of  Weybridge 
and  Kennington  as  Stephen  McKenna  is  in  the  aristo- 
cratic world  of  Mayfair  and  Kensington  ("  where  the 
dialect  songs  come  from  ").  He  is  far  more  alive 
than  Mr  McKenna  :  his  vision  is  larger,  his  sympathies 
broader. 

In  Nocturne,  a  wonderful  tour  de  force,  in  which 
the  whole  action  is  confined  to  six  hours,  we  actually 
share  every  minute  of  the  young  milliner's  experiences. 
The  small  house  in  Kennington  Park,  where  laughing, 
loving,  passionate  Jenny  lives  with  her  paralysed 
"  Pa  "  and  jealous  Martha-like  sister  "  Em,"  is  put 
before  us  perfect  in  every  detail :  we  see  "  Pa's  " 
appetite  for  romance  satisfied  in  the  shape  of  murder 
and  sudden  death  in  the  newspaper,  as  his  appetite 
for  food  is  by  mountainous  apple-dumplings.  "  Em's  " 
yearnings  are  reserved  for  the  insipid  "  Alf,"  who 
"  walks  out  "  with  Jenny,  while  Jenny's  may  be 
gauged  from  this  extract :  "  She  wanted  to  go  out 
in  the  darkness  that  so  pleasantly  enwrapped  the 
earth,  back  to  the  stir  and  glitter  of  life  somewhere 
beyond.  Her  vision  had  been  far  different  from  this 
scene.  It  carried  her  over  land  and  sea  right  into 
an  unexplored  realm  where  there  was  wild  laughter 

37 


88  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

and  noise,  where  hearts  broke  tragically  and  women 
in  the  hour  of  ruin  turned  triumphant  eyes  to  the 
glory  of  life,  and  where  blinding,  streaming  lights  and 
scintillating  colours  made  everything  seem  different, 
made  it  seem  romantic,  rapturous,  indescribable. 
From  that  vision  back  to  the  cupboard-like  house  in 
Kennington  Park,  and  stodgy  Alf  Rylett,  and  supper 
of  stew  and  bread-and-butter  pudding,  and  Pa,  and 
this  little  sobbing  figure  in  her  arms,  was  an  incon- 
gruous flight.  It  made  Jenny's  mouth  twist  in  a 
smile  so  painful  that  it  was  almost  a  grimace. 

"  *  Oh,  lor ! '  she  said  again,  under  her  breath. 
*  What  a  life.'  " 

Pa  was  something  like  an  old  beloved  dog,  imable 
to  speak ;  it  was  Emmy  who  best  understood  the 
bitterness  of  his  soul ;  it  was  Emmy  who  was  most 
with  him,  and  Emmy  who  felt  sometimes  as  if  she 
could  kill  him  in  her  fierce  hatred  of  his  helplessness 
and  stupidity.  Emmy  was  harder  than  Jenny  on 
the  surface,  but  weaker  below.  Jenny  was  self- 
sufficient,  self -protective,  more  happy-go-lucky,  more 
humorous  than  Emmy.  We  see  these  sisters  (who 
love  one  another  deeply)  first  quarrelling  over  Alf. 
He  prefers  Jenny,  and  she  treats  him  like  dirt,  while 
Emmy  is  furiously  jealous. 

"  He's  all  right  in  his  way,"  admitted  Jenny. 
"  He's  clean.  But  he's  quiet  .  .  .  he's  got  no  devil 
in  him.  Sort  of  man  who  tells  you  what  he  likes  for 
breakfast.  I  only  go  with  him.  .  .  .  Well,  you  know 
why,  as  well  as  I  do.  But  he's  never  on  for  a  bit  of 
fun.  That's  it :  he's  got  no  devil  in  him.  I  don't 
like  that  kind.     Prefer  the  other  sort." 

A  knock  at  the  door  interrupts  the  sisters'  tart 
arguments,  and  Alf  appears  armed  with  seats  for  the 
theatre ;    before  he  has  the  chance  to  invite  Jenny 


FRANK  SWINNERTON  89 

(in  her  sister's  presence),  she  makes  it  clear  that  she 
thinks  he  has  come  to  take  Em,  and  forces  him  to 
do  so.  While  Em,  who  is  overjoyed,  goes  out  of  the 
room  to  dress,  Jenny  and  Alf  have  a  heart-to-heart 
row  which  reveals  their  naked  souls  to  the  reader  in 
a  way  that  almost  shocks  one,  so  real  does  it  sound. 
It  is  as  if  we  were  held  by  a  vice  in  the  room,  compelled 
to  listen  to  confidences  of  the  most  private  sort. 
Eventually  Alf  and  Em  go,  and  Jenny  is  left  at  home 
to  look  after  Pa  and  work  out  in  her  mind  exactly 
what  she  has  done,  gradually  rising  into  a  frenzy  of 
rebellion  at  the  dullness  and  slavery  which  is  her 
life.  While  she  is  lost  in  reverie  there  is  another 
knock  at  the  door,  and  she  opens  to  find  a  large  car, 
a  chauffeur,  and  a  letter  for  her  from  a  sailor  she  had 
met  some  months  before,  requesting  her  to  come  to 
supper  on  his  yacht.  After  a  sharp  conflict  with  her 
conscience  she  leaves  Pa  and  drives  off  in  an  intoxica- 
tion of  bliss.  Keith,  her  dream-lover,  meets  her  on 
board  and  takes  her  down  to  the  cabin.  "  She  had 
never  before  seen  such  a  room.  It  seemed,  because 
the  ceiling  was  low,  to  be  very  spacious  ;  the  walls 
and  ceiling  were  of  a  kind  of  dusky  amber  hue ;  a 
golden  brown  was  everywhere  the  prevailing  tint. 
In  the  middle  stood  a  square  table  ;  and  on  the 
table,  arrayed  on  an  exquisitely  white  tablecloth,  was 
laid  a  wondrous  meal.  The  table  was  laid  for  two  ; 
candles  with  amber  shades  made  silver  shine  and 
glasses  glitter.  Upon  a  fruit-stand  were  peaches  and 
nectarines  ;  upon  a  tray  she  saw  decanters  :  little 
dishes  crowding  the  table  bore  mysterious  things  to 
eat  such  as  Jenny  had  never  before  seen  .  .  .  every- 
where she  saw  flowers  similar  to  those  which  had  been 
in  the  motor-car." 

It  is  noticeable  that  Mr  Swinnerton  knows  how  to 


40  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WTRITERS 

make  our  mouths  water  with  a  description  of  food, 
thereby  confirming  Alec  Waugh's  evidence  that  for 
a  book  to  be  successful  one  necessary  ingredient  is  the 
actual  description  of  rich  meals.  Coming  as  we  do  from 
the  stew  and  bread-and-butter  pudding  of  Kennington 
we  are  all  the  more  likely  to  succumb,  as  Jenny  does,  to 
the  soup,  whitebait,  trifle,  peaches,  almonds,  and  won- 
derful red  wine  which  Keith  had  so  cunningly  prepared. 
The  love-making  that  follows  the  meal  is  astoundingly 
real :  Jenny,  loving  him  with  all  the  force  of  her 
passionate  nature,  yet  struggling  ^vith  herself  all  the 
time,  believes  that  it  is  all  no  use  as  he  didn't 
love  her  as  she  wanted  him  to.  In  the  end  he  tells 
her  quickly  the  story  of  his  life.  "  I  picked  up  a 
girl  in  London  when  I  was  twenty — ^not  honest,  but 
straight  to  me.  It  was  no  good.  She  went  off  with 
other  men  because  I  got  tired  of  her  :  I  told  her  she 
could  stick  to  me  or  let  me  go.  She  wanted  both. 
Then  I  got  engaged  to  a  girl — married  to  her  when 
I  was  twenty-three — and  she's  dead.  After  I'd  been 
with  her  for  a  year  I  broke  away.  ...  I  haven't  got 
a  very  good  record  :  I've  lived  with  three  women, 
all  of  whom  knew  more  than  I  did.  I've  never 
done  a  girl  any  harm  intentionally :  the  last 
of  them  belongs  to  six  years  ago.  You're  the  girl 
I  love." 

"  What  I'm  wondering,"  said  Jenny,  "  is,  what 
you'd  think  of  me  if  I'd  lived  with  three  different 
men  ?  "  On  and  on  runs  the  argument  between  them, 
Keith  trying  to  make  her  believe  that  he  would  love 
her  always,  marry  her  on  his  return  from  the  voyage 
just  due  to  begin,  Jenny  knowing  her  absolute  love 
for  him,  yet  holding  back,  distrust  of  him  looming 
large  before  her :  ultimately  she  capitulates  and 
returns  home  at  midnight  to  find  that  in  her  absence 


FRANK  SWINNERTON      •  41 

Alf  and  Emmy  have  agreed  to  get  married,  and  Pa 
has  had  a  bad  accident. 

Having  at  last  got  into  bed  she  begins  to  judge  her 
own  conduct.  "  She  was  Keith's  :  she  belonged  to 
him  :  but  he  did  not  belong  to  her.  To  Keith  she 
might,  she  would  give  all,  as  she  had  done  :  but  he 
would  still  be  apart  from  her.  Away  from  him, 
released  from  the  spell,  Jenny  knew  that  she  had 
yielded  to  him  the  freedom  she  so  cherished  as  her 
inalienable  right.  She  had  given  him  her  freedom  : 
for  her  real  freedom  was  her  innocence  and  her  desire 
to  do  right.  She  could  not  forgive  herself.  She 
struggled  to  go  back  to  the  old  way  of  looking  at 
everything.  In  a  forlorn,  quivering  voice  she  ven- 
tured :  "  What  a  life  !  Golly,  what  a  life  !  "  But 
the  effort  to  pretend  was  too  great.  She  threw  her- 
self on  the  bed  :  "  Keith  ...  oh,  Keith.  .  .  ."  The 
subtle  analysis  of  a  young  girl's  mind  has  never  been 
better  done. 

Shops  and  Houses  is  a  novel  of  quite  another  sort. 
Here  we  are  shown  the  narrowness  of  suburban 
society.  "  One  would  think  that  a  quite  special 
piece  of  righteousness  had  been  dealt  out  to  each  of 
the  Beckwith  ladies  at  birth  by  a  benign  fairy.  Liv- 
ing in  Beckwith  is  like  living  upon  glass.  It  is  both 
slippery  and  brittle.  Nearly  all  the  women  suffer 
from  aimlessness,  an  insatiable  egomania."  The 
Vechantors,  who  lead  this  society,  are,  however,  above 
this  pettiness  :  it  is  of  Louis  Vechantor  and  his 
fortunes  that  the  book  treats.  Mr  Swinnerton  is 
exceedingly  bitter  in  his  irony  about  this  suburb  of 
his.  "  Nothing  ever  happened  at  Beckwith.  It  was 
like  a  backwater.  Only  time  was  consumed.  That 
was  the  secret,  terrible  aim  of  dwellers  in  Beckwith. 
To  eat  a  day  and  look  forward  to  the  next  with 


42  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WAITERS 

insatiable  appetite.  Little  concerts  in  half-warmed 
church  rooms,  little  amateur  theatricals  and  dances 
in  the  shabby  Town  Hall — ^anything  to  destroy  the 
danger  that  lurks  in  unoccupied  time.  Restlessness 
demands  an  outlet,  not  in  constructive  action,  nor  in 
clear  thinking,  nor  in  real  festivals  or  in  the  cultiva- 
tion of  growth  ;  but  solely  in  the  destruction  of  time 
and  the  resuscitation  of  exhausting  excitements . ' '  But 
the  greatest  excitement  comes  in  imexpectedly.  A 
certain  William  Vechantor,  cousin  to  the  Vechantors, 
takes  over  a  grocer's  shop  in  the  town,  and  society 
is  horrified,  aghast.  Louis  Vechantor  can't  see  why 
his  family  are  so  upset,  and  says  so,  whereupon  his 
father  turns  on  him  with  fierce  cormnents  about 
shallow  democratic  snobbery. 

Louis  is  suddenly  diverted  from  the  problem  about 
the  cousin-grocers  by  being  made  the  confidant  of  a 
weak  young  man  called  Eric  Daunton,  who  has 
become  engaged  to  an  "  impossible "  girl.  Louis 
advises  him  to  marry  her  in  spite  of  all  opposition, 
and  then  does  something  himself  which  sets  the  wheel 
of  fate  in  motion  for  him ;  he  calls  on  his  cousins 
and  meets  Dorothy,  the  grocer's  daughter,  completely 
different  from  the  Beckwith  girls,  who  were  tough,  and 
superficially  emotional,  who  seemed  to  live  for  excite- 
ment and  to  make  it  for  themselves  out  of  nothing. 
He  begins  to  ruminate  over  the  curious  anomalies  in 
the  other  sex,  the  insensitive  cruelty  of  Veronica 
Hughes,  who  could  gloat  over  the  agony  of  a  bleeding 
bird.  Dorothy  was  not  at  all  Beckwithian  :  she  was 
not  devout,  she  took  nothing  on  trust.  He  meets 
her  by  accident  again  one  day  in  a  train  at  London 
Bridge,  and  in  spite  of  her  rudeness  to  him  manages  to 
rouse  her  to  talk,  and  recognises  something  real  and 
vital  about  her  that  he  could  admire,  as  different 


FRANK  SWINNERTON  48 

as  possible  from  Veronica.  A  spying  gossip,  by  name 
Miss  Lampe,  sees  Louis  and  Dorothy  getting  out  of 
the  train  together,  and  spreads  maHcious  rumours, 
and  Louis  is  tackled  by  Veronica  for  going  about 
with  "  that  common  girl."  Worse — ^the  customers 
of  the  Vechantors  drop  off,  one  by  one.  The  gossip 
even  reaches  the  ears  of  his  father  and  mother,  and 
he  is  told  to  cease  from  seeing  any  more  of  his 
cousins ;  he  refuses  and  leaves  home  in  consequence. 
He  has  an  abortive  interview  with  Veronica,  and  then 
Daunton  comes  to  lament  over  his  failure  to  cut  loose 
from  his  traditions. 

"  In  Beckwith  they  swaddle  you  all  up,  and  you're 
bound  to  break  out  on  the  quiet ;  and  then — ^no, 
they  don't  beat  you,  or  shut  you  up  ;  they  cast  you 
out.  It's  the  punishment  they're  keen  on.  It  satisfies 
their  cruelty  :  Veronica,  for  instance,  if  she  got  hold 
of  a  man  who'd  cut  all  meetings  in  the  dark,  all  the 
hysterical  little  smothered  kisses  and  cowardly  secrets, 
she'd  very  likely  fall  in  love  with  him  and  be  a 
woman."  Dorothy  meanwhile  had  fallen  more  and 
more  in  love  with  Louis  now  that  he  had  cast  off  his 
fetters  and  left  home.  "  It  gave  her  life  new  signifi- 
cance, as  though  she  had  been  groping  blindly,  with- 
out any  clear  aim.  Ah,  if  Louis  loved  her  :  even 
that  did  not  matter,  if  she  could  only  be  important 
to  him  I  "  It  was  a  beautiful  time  to  her,  in  spite 
of  the  shop,  in  spite  of  the  houses  filled  with  unhappy 
and  ill-disposed  people  which  she  passed  each  day. 
It  was  enough  to  live  and  love.  As  time  passed  she 
became  fearful :  no  one  seemed  to  have  heard  any- 
thing of  Louis  :  Dorothy  was  in  a  panic  lest  he  should 
be  ill.  Then  came  the  night  of  the  concert  when  she 
discovered  that  Veronica  was  also  in  love  with  Louis, 
and  was  betrayed  by  her  emotion  into  calling  Miss 


44  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

Lampe  "  a  venomous  beast  of  a  woman."  She  then 
becomes  maddened  with  jealousy,  gets  ill,  only  recover- 
ing on  the  reappearance  of  Louis.  Ultimately  they,  of 
course,  fall  into  each  other's  arms  .  .  .  but  it's  Beck- 
with  that  we  are  mainly  concerned  with  in  this  novel, 
not  the  love  lyrics.  "  I've  been  thinking,"  says 
Dorothy,  "  whether  perhaps  Beckwith — ^that  it  isn't 
altogether  a  place  at  all.  I  mean,  whether  it  isn't 
a  sort  of  disease.  If  you  live  in  London  you  hardly 
know  your  neighbours — you  have  your  own  friends. 
Nobody  else  cares  twopence  about  you.  But  London 
isn't  England.  I've  been  wondering  if,  directly  you 
go  to  England  to  live,  you  don't  find  Beckwith. 
Isn't  Beckwdth  any  small  town  in  England  ?  Isn't 
the  choice  between  London — ^that's  heartless — ^and 
Beckwith,  where  your  life's  everybody's  business  ? 
Lovely  Beckwith — poor — poor  people — shut  up  in 
their  houses  and  their  shops,  and  never  seeing  out- 
side— I  think  I  hate  stupidity  worse  than  anything 
on  earth,  because  it  frightens  me  and  crushes  me." 
In  order  to  press  the  moral  home  Mr  Swinnerton 
favours  us  with  an  epilogue  in  the  shape  of  a  conversa- 
tion between  Miss  Lampe  and  other  typical  Beck- 
withians  after  Louis  and  Dorothy  had  escaped  from 
their  toils.  "  While  they  were  here  I  felt  all  the  time 
that  they  were  spoiling  our  little  Cranford."  Cran- 
ford  !  a  community  spending  its  time  in  a  venomous 
search  for  the  weakness  of  other  people,  watching, 
envying,  scratching. 


V 

STEPHEN  McKENNA 

MR  McKENNA  leapt  into  fame  with  Sonia  :  it 
was  no  compliment  to  him.  He  had  already 
written  novels  before  this  which  apparently 
no  one  read,  which  were  nearly  as  good  as,  if  not  better 
than,  the  one  over  which  the  public  chose  to  rave. 
He  is  a  bom  raconteur  :  but  there  is  very  little  depth 
in  him  :  most  of  his  work  scintillates  with  an  obvious 
harshness  :  he  indulges  in  epigrams  :  like  Oscar  Wilde 
he  does  not  seem  even  to  realise  that  there  are  any 
classes  of  society  other  than  the  aristocracy  :  his 
horizon  is  bounded  by  Half-Moon  Street  on  the  one 
side  and  Clarges  Street  on  the  other  :  he  has  a  gift 
of  wit  which  in  Ninety-six  Hours'  Leave,  a  book  that 
couldn't  have  taken  more  than  ninety-six  hours  to 
write,  is  thoroughly  adapted  for  readers  of  The  By- 
stander and  undergraduates  generally.  It  is  as  well 
that  there  should  be  novelists  who  exactly  suit  con- 
valescents. The  authoress  of  Elizabeth  and  Her 
German  Garden  is  one  of  the  best  of  these  :  Stephen 
McKenna  is  another.  ...  I  cannot  think  him  a 
genius :  talented  ?  yes.  Admirable  for  reading  in 
a  train  or  when  the  brain  is  tired.  And  this  is  not 
to  depreciate  his  value.  There  are  very  few  really 
satisfactory  novels  which  can  hold  our  attention  and 
yet  not  probe  into  the  problems  of  life.  You  may 
say  that  in  Midas  and  Son  he  has  attacked  a  very 
grave  problem,  that  of  immense  wealth  and  its  dangers, 
but  most  of  us  would  be  willing  to  accept  all  the 
responsibilities  of  vast  riches  quite  light-heartedly  if 
any  sportsman  were  to  be  forthcoming  with  the  offer 

45 


46  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

of  them.     The  problem  of  poverty  as  seen  by  George 
Gissing  gives  genius  full  scope,  but  genius  regards 
the  problem  of  Midas  as  quite  a  good  joke.     We  thank 
God  for  Stephen  McKenna  because  he  occupies  our 
very  necessary  hours  of  ease.     It  is  so  delightful  to 
find  that  he  knows  his  job.     There  are  scarcely  any 
people  in  his  pages  who  are  not  titled  :    the  joy  of 
discovering  that  they  do  actually  talk  as  titled  people 
do  talk — that  is,  like  every  one  else  above  the  local 
grocer — is  a  very  real  one.     Most  novelists  have  a 
special  vocabulary  for  dukes  :    they  move  stiffly  in 
their  presence  :  it  is  hard  even  for  an  Honourable 
to  unbend.     I  like  characters  who  make  it  a  rule 
never   to   see   suffering :     for   whom   suffering   and 
poverty  do  not  exist.     "  When  the  world  is  simply 
crowded  with  beautiful  things  to  see,  to  hear,  to  smell, 
to  touch,  to  taste,  it  is  nothing  but  perverted  ingenuity 
to  go  in  search  of  squalor  and  pain  and  hunger  :   the 
only  suffering  I  know  is  that  which  comes  over  me 
when  I  reflect  on  the  transitory  nature  of  it  all,  and 
between  ourselves  I  don't  let  that  distress  me  as 
much  as  an  artist  in  life  should."    I  feel  drawn  to 
people  who  keep  engagement  books  of  this  sort : 
"  April  30th,  oysters  go  out  of  season ; "  who  make 
epigrams  like  "  Man  cannot  live  by  Aubrey  Beardsley 
alone,  at  least  not  after  he's  five-and- twenty "  ;  "To 
speak  seriously  argues  an  arrested  temperament  " ;  or 
the  more  sober  statements  of  men  like  Lord  Darling- 
ton, "  You  can't  get  a  wife  without  working  for  her, 
and  you  can't  work  without  a  wife  " ;  or  the  Oxford 
don  "  who  used  to  say  that  the  worst  of  bachelor 
parties  was  that  you  missed  the  exquisite  moment 
when  the  ladies  left  the  room." 

And  having  written  so  far  I  am  troubled.     I  don't 
want  to  cross  it  all  out  because  it  is  in  some  measure 


STEPHEN  McKENNA  47 

true.  But  it  is  not  the  whole  truth.  Let  me  test 
it  by  taking  The  Reluctant  Lover  as  an  example  of  his 
art  at  its  best.  There  are  few  more  readable  books 
on  the  market :  there  is  a  rattling  good  plot,  un- 
expected dSnouement,  human  characters,  adorable 
heroines,  quite  a  number  of  them  :  Mr  McKenna  has 
the  deftest  touch  in  limning  the  features  and  probing 
the  minds  of  attractive  young  girls  :  his  dialogue  is 
always  clever,  if  at  times  unnaturally  artificial  and 
stilted  :  he  is  a  master  craftsman  in  avoiding  loose 
ends  and  polishing  rough  edges.  In  some  ways  this 
story  of  the  selfish,  but  entirely  lovable  boy,  C5rril 
Fitzroy,  is  the  story  of  the  development  of  every 
man  :  "  He  affects  to  study  women  as  he  studies 
men,  in  the  light  of  specimens  :  and  sometimes  as 
works  of  art  by  an  inspired  hand.  From  a  sexual 
point  of  view  he  is  completely  indifferent  and  extra- 
ordinarily cold-blooded."  But  he  is  doomed  to  fall 
when  the  exquisite  Myra  Woodbridge,  piqued  by  his 
indifference,  sets  her  cap  at  him.  The  description 
of  liady  Delaunay's  ball,  where  the  pair  first  meet 
and  dance  together  for  six  hours  in  succession,  is 
inimitably  told  :  the  intellectual  sparring  between 
the  two  is  a  watered-down  Meredith,  and  therefore 
more  like  life  as  we  know  it  than  it  is  in  Meredith. 
This  is  not  to  suggest  that  Mr.  McKenna  can  compare 
in  any  way  whatever  with  this  or  any  other  genius  : 
I  still  maintain  that  he  has  no  genius  :  but  his  talent 
is  unmistakable.  I  could  find  it  in  my  heart  to  wish 
that  he  would  quote  less  Latin,  and  not  hark  back 
so  frequently  to  Oxford  experiences.  He  writes  like 
the  elderly  uncle  he  pretends  to  be  in  Sonia.  Even 
as  an  undergraduate  he  must  have  been  very  like  a 
don.  Still  quite  a  young  man,  like  Cyril  Fitzroy, 
he  yet  talks  academically  and  in  the  tones  of  sophis- 


48  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

ticated,  disillusioned  middle  age.     Not  for  him  the 
follies  and  extravagances  of  youth.     One  reads  some- 
thing of  himself  in  the  character  of  Rodney  Trelawney, 
the  young  Oxford  don  prematurely  aged  and  world- 
weary,  knowing  little  of  sympathy,  inexperienced  in 
life,  a  little  crabbed,  a  little  inhuman,  a  little  lonely, 
yet    immensely    complacent    and    self-satisfied.     He 
must  have  his  Oxford  lunch  of  dressed  crab,  quails, 
green  peas,  marasquino  jelly,  croustade  au  parmeson^ 
strawberries,  and  iced  hock  cup ;  his  clothes  must  fit 
him  perfectly,  and  there  must  always  be  the  white  silk 
pyjamas  ;   there  must  be  a  persistent  dredging  of  the 
waters  of  the  memory  to  recall  old  Oxford  "  rags," 
old  Oxford  tales  discreditable  to  Balliol,  upholding 
the  prestige  of  The  House.  .  .  .  But  all  this,  again, 
is  a  trifle  unkind  and  only  partly  true.     There  is 
plenty  of  intellectual  stimulus,  and  very  little  beating 
about  the  bush,  no  morbid  psychology  here  :   on  the 
other  hand,  there  is  some  very  straight  talk  at  times, 
as  in  this  illuminating  passage  :    "  Give  a  thing  for 
nothing,  and  it  will  be  valued  at  nothing  :   give  poor 
people  free  education,  and  they  regard  it  as  value- 
less.    If  Rodney  [it  is  Myra  speaking]  gives  me  the 
whole-hearted  adoration  you  speak  of — and  I  don't 
have  to  struggle  for  it — I  shall  count  it  as  valueless, 
and  in  coiu-se  of  time  it  will  die  of  neglect.     Which 
is  not  a  good  condition  for   '  sickness  and  health, 
weal  and  woe,'  for  life.     The  remedy  is  to  find  some 
one  who  attracts  me  and  force  him  to  love  me  whether 
he  wants  to  or  not.    And  when  I  have  won  his  love 
I  shall  value  it,  and  when  he  has  had  to  part  with 
it  with  a  struggle  he  will  see  the  value  I  put  upon  it, 
and  know  it  is  in  good  hands,  and  he  will  honour  me 
for  the  fight  I  have  fought  and  the  victory  I  have 
won."     She  is  thinking,  of  course,  of  Cyril,  who  is 


STEPHEN  McKENNA  49 

neither  primitive  (the  body-hunter)  nor  in  the  second 
stage  of  civilisation  (the  heart-hunter,  the  philanderer), 
but  the  soul-hunter,  the  connoisseur  of  rare  emotions. 
The  battle-royal  between  Myra  and  Cyril  when  he  shows 
his  hand  is  a  masterpiece  of  analysis.  He  tries  to  show 
her  the  unwisdom  of  setting  one's  affections  on  anything 
or  any  one  in  the  whole  world  other  than  oneself. 

"  I  suggest  that  happiness  only  comes  to  the  man 
who  has  strangled  all  affections  and  trodden  every 
appetite  under  foot.  If  you  marry,  you  are  giving 
a  hostage  to  misfortune  in  your  wife  and  every  one 
of  your  children.  If  you  grow  fond  of  a  cat  or  a 
book  or  a  house  .  .  .  the  cat  may  die,  the  book  may 
be  lost,  the  house  burnt  down." 

"  For  the  man  who  cannot  take  pleasure  in  the 
sight  and  scent  of  a  rose  because  he  knows  it  must 
soon  die,  there  is  no  hope,"  quotes  Myra.  Later 
Cyril  is  brought  to  book  by  a  member  of  his  own 
family.  "  It's  better  to  cultivate  and  cherish  a  rose 
and  to  enjoy  its  scent  and  beauty,  even  if  it  ultimately 
dies,  than  to  be  content  with  a  wax  flower  which 
never  fades,  but  never  gives  you  a  moment's  gratifica- 
tion in  a  lifetime.  We've  all  got  to  die,  Cyril,  and 
my  complaint  against  your  philosophy  is  not  that  it 
is  rottenly  unsound,  not  that  it  is  going  to  make 
yours  an  unhappy  life,  but  simply  that  you  play  the 
game  of  life  and  don't  want  to  obey  the  rules.  .  .  . 
You're  going  to  die  probably  before  your  work — 
whatever  it  may  be — ^is  finished.  So  am  I.  Well, 
do  the  best  you  can  in  the  interval.  If  you  love 
your  wife  and  she  dies  before  you,  well — so  much  the 
worse  for  you,  and  make  the  most  you  can  of  the 
time  you're  together.  For  heaven's  sake  don't 
imagine  that  you're  entitled  to  a  special  Providence 
which  is  going  to  insure  you  against  all  risks  free  of 

D 


fiO  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

charge,  and  don't  have  a  grievance  when  death  lays 
hands  on  your  most  cherished  possessions."  But  he 
is  not  won  over  even  when,  in  a  third  great  scene, 
Myra  shows  her  love  for  him  and  is  prepared  to 
marry  him  :  he  sees  too  clearly  :  he  loves  her,  but 
he  is  afraid  of  himself.  "  Before  a  man  marries  he 
must  feel  that  his  wife  is  indispensable  to  him,  and 
that  he  could  not  go  on  living  without  her.  I  don't 
feel  that.  I've  always  boasted  of  not  being  dependent 
on  any  one  for  my  happiness,  and  I've  grown  to 
believe  it."  The  strange  couple  agree  to  a  secret 
engagement  for  two  years  to  test  Cyril's  idea  that 
it  may  only  be  an  infatuation.  Cyril  goes  abroad 
with  his  sixteen  year-old  ward,  Violet,  another  charm- 
ing girl.  Rodney,  a  rejected  lover  of  Myra's,  again 
retiims  to  the  attack  and  fails,  and  at  length  the 
time  of  probation  comes  to  an  end,  Myra  having 
discovered  without  the  help  of  the  gods  the  one  man 
for  whom  she  would  sacrifice  everything  in  the  world  ; 
then  suddenly  Violet  falls  ill  and  nearly  dies  of 
diphtheria,  while  Cyril  and  Myra  talk  interminably 
(quoting  the  classics  freely)  in  a  way  calculated  to 
shock  the  careless  reader.  Cyril  then  saves  Violet's 
life  by  risking  his  own,  and  to  his  astonishment  finds 
that  his  ward  on  her  recovery  is  in  love  with  him, 
and  he  marries  her,  but  Myra  has  the  last  word. 
"  I'm  too  independent  for  you,  Cyril :  you  want 
somebody  who  will  look  up  to  you  and  depend  on 
you  and  need  your  help  and  support.  That's  why 
you  and  Violet  are  going  to  be  very  well  suited  and 
very  happy  together." 

This  really  is  the  secret  of  Mr  McKenna's  limita- 
tions :  all  his  heroes  and  heroines  are  good  only  in  as 
far  as  they  are  well  suited  and  happy  together.  It  is 
time  he  deserted  his  Sonia  and  returned  to  Violet. 


VI 

THE  CENTENARY  OF  JANE  AUSTEN 


AS  a  callow  undergraduate  I  remember  being 
roused  out  of  an  apathetic  stupor  while  at- 
tending a  lecture  on  the  history  of  the  English 
novel  by  these  startling  words  on  the  subject  of  Jane 
Austen's  readers  :  "  Rabbits  cannot  be  expected  to 
take  an  interest  or  see  anything  humorous  in  the  sight 
of  other  rabbits  performing  their  ludicrous  antics." 

Was  the  reason  that  I  had  failed  to  appreciate  the 
subtlety  and  charm  of  Jane  Austen  solely  due  to  the 
fact  that  I  was  dull  of  mind  and  of  as  commonplace 
a  character  as  some  of  the  dramatis  personae  of  her 
works,  and  therefore  unable  to  see  the  comic  side  of 
her  delineation  ?  I  returned  home  determined  to 
find  out  exactly  where  her  power  lay,  what  claims 
she  really  had  to  be  called  the  feminine  counterpart 
to  Shakespeare. 

I  found  that  the  mistake  I  had  made  was  not 
entirely  due  to  my  own  ineptitude,  but  that  I  had 
read  her  too  fast.  I  had  hurried  over  page  after  page 
in  order  to  reach  the  story,  to  get  the  hang  of  the 
plot,  to  find  some  exciting  incident,  for  all  the  world 
as  if  I  expected  some  lurid  "  film  "  drama.  I  had  to 
revise  my  method  of  reading.  I  had  to  learn  the 
hard  lesson  that  Jane  Austen  was  not  "  Aunt  Jane  " 
of  the  crinoline  era  moving  stiffly  in  an  artificial 
circumscribed  area,  speaking  correctly  in  an  old- 
Si 


52  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

fashioned,  effete,  precise  English,  but  a  genial,  kindly, 
yet  caustic  genius  who  wrote  with  her  tongue  in  her 
cheek,  and,  like  Chaucer,  was  not  averse  from  pulling 
her  readers'  "  legs "  unless  they  exercised  care. 
Instead  of  a  "  bookish  blue-stocking "  I  found  a 
woman  with  an  almost  uncanny  depth  of  insight  into 
human  character,  one  who  realised  that  although  life 
was  far  more  important  than  literature,  yet  the  true 
novelist  exercised  the  function  of  displaying  the 
greatest  powers  of  the  mind,  and  that  novels  are 
works  "  in  which  the  most  thorough  knowledge  of 
human  nature,  the  happiest  delineation  of  its  varieties, 
the  liveliest  effusions  of  wit  and  humour,  are  conveyed 
to  the  world  in  the  best-chosen  language." 

In  other  words,  I  found  that  new,  hitherto  un- 
dreamt-of, vistas  were  being  opened  up  to  me,  vistas 
which  helped  me  to  understand  this  complex,  intricate 
tangle  which  we  call  the  art  of  living.  As  a  result 
of  my  re-reading  I  first  felt  a  sense  of  shame  at  having 
allowed  myself  to  be  so  blind  to  her  greatness,  and 
then  a  sense  of  mystery  as  to  how  a  woman  who 
lived  so  simple  and  secluded  a  life  could  ever  have 
achieved  so  stupendous  a  task. 

Here  was  a  girl  who  only  lived  for  forty-two  years, 
the  daughter  of  a  country  parson,  who  never  went 
abroad,  to  London  but  rarely,  whose  greatest  excite- 
ment was  a  visit  to  Bath  or  Lyme  Regis,  who  may 
or  may  not  have  suffered  disappointment  in  love,  but 
certainly  had  no  grand  passion,  who  lived  through 
the  French  Revolution,  Waterloo,  and  Trafalgar,  and 
yet  makes  no  mention  of  those  stirring  times,  leaving 
behind  her  a  sequence  of  novels  which  within  their 
own  limitations  are  unapproachably  perfect.  She 
lived  for  the  most  part  in  the  depths  of  the  country 
at  a  time  when  nu'al  society  was  even  more  vacuous 


JANE  AUSTEN  53 

than  it  is  to-day.  Small-talk,  knitting,  filigree-work, 
and  backgammon  occupied  the  leisure  hours  of  her 
sex,  while  men  shot  and  hunted  in  moderation,  but 
were  always  ready  to  accompany  the  ladies  on  their 
shopping  excursions  or  to  a  local  dance. 

This  is  the  life  that  Jane  Austen  set  out  to  describe, 
knowing  no  other.  That  she  succeeded  in  imbuing 
this  with  eternal  interest  makes  one  wistfully  regret 
that  she  had  not  Fanny  Burney's  chances  of  mixing 
with  the  great  men  and  women  of  her  time,  and  yet 
...  we  have  her  own  word  for  it  that  she  could  not 
have  undertaken  to  deal  with  any  other  types  of  men 
and  women  than  those  among  whom  her  lot  was  cast. 

"  I  could  no  more  write  a  romance  than  an  epic 
poem.  I  could  not  sit  down  seriously  to  -syrite  a 
serious  romance  under  any  other  motive  than  to  save 
my  life  ;  and  if  it  were  indispensable  for  me  to  keep 
it  up  and  never  relax  into  laughing  at  myself  and 
other  people,  I  am  sure  I  should  be  hung  before  I 
had  finished  the  first  chapter." 

When  the  Prince  Regent's  librarian  suggested  that 
she  should  delineate  the  habits  of  life  of  a  clergyman, 
she  replied  : 

"  The  comic  part  of  the  character  I  might  be  equal 
to,  but  not  the  good,  the  enthusiastic,  the  literary. 
Such  a  man's  conversation  must  at  times  be  on  subjects 
of  science — ^philosophy,  of  which  I  know  nothing  ;  or 
at  least  be  occasionally  abundant  in  quotations  and 
allusions  which  a  woman,  who,  like  me,  knows  only 
her  mother  tongue,  and  has  read  little  in  that,  would 
be  totally  without  the  power  of  giving.  A  classical 
education,  or  at  any  rate  a  very  extensive  acquaint- 
ance with  English  literature,  ancient  and  modem, 
appears  to  me  quite  indispensable  for  the  person  who 
would  do  any  justice  to  your  clergyman  ;  and  I  think 


54  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

I  may  boast  myself  to  be,  with  all  possible  vanity, 
the  most  unlearned  and  uninformed  female  who  ever 
dared  to  be  an  authoress." 
•  It  is  not  surprising  in  the  light  of  this  to  find  that 
she  has  nothing  in  common  with  a  great  moral  teacher 
like  Dostoievsky  ;  her  religion  never  obtrudes  itself 
into  her  writings ;  she  has  no  formal  gospel  to 
propagate. 

She  was  neither  Pantheist,  Monotheist,  Agnostic, 

nor  Transcendentalist ;  that  she  hated  Evangelicalism 

while  recognising  its  good  points  we  know.     Heart- 

lessness  is  the  only  crime  that  she  finds  it  in  her  heart 

•to  condemn  unsparingly. 

We  do  not  go  to  Jane  Austen  for  descriptions  of 
natural  beauty  ;  she  has  neither  Hardy's  nor  Words- 
worth's passion  for  scenery  ;  she  does  not  use  hedge- 
row delights  nor  grim  mountain  peaks  as  a  background 
for  her  characters,  any  more  than  she  treats  of  man 
in  his  relation  to  his  environment.  In  other  words, 
she  has  no  poetry  ;  she  avoids  the  heroic,  the  romantic, 
and  the  ideal. 

She  does  not  probe  the  human  soul  for  motives, 
nor  does  she  seek  to  illuminate  or  display  them  as 
later  novelists  have  done  ;  as  Mr  Warre  Cornish  says, 
she  has  no  need  to  construct  her  characters,  for  they 
are  there  before  her,  like  Mozart's  music,  only  waiting 
to  be  written  down. 

She  does  not  use  her  narrative  power  as  Fielding 
did  to  tell  a  story  and  create  situations,  but  simply 
as  a  means  to  an  end,  the  unfolding  of  character. 
That  is,  she  belongs  to  the  school  of  Richardson  rather 
than  to  any  other  of  her  predecessors,  the  school 
which  has  received  such  an  impetus  in  our  own  day 
in  the  work  of  Arnold  Bennett. 

She  paints  in  every  detail  with  meticulous  care ; 


JANE  AUSTEN  55 

with  the  true  artistic  temperament  she  refuses  to  pass 
any  tendency  to  the  slovenly,  but  with  deliberation 
and  exactitude  sketches  in  every  trait  which  will 
help  to  make  the  portrait  life-like. 

Like  all  geniuses  she  recognised  both  where  her 
true  mitier  lay  and  how  she  achieved  her  self-imposed 
task.  Every  one  remembers  her  phrase  about  "  the 
little  bit  (two  inches  wide)  of  ivory  on  which  I  work 
with  so  fine  a  brush  as  produces  little  effect  after  much 
labour." 

Her  pellucid  vision  gave  her  two  eminent  cha- 
racteristics which  at  first  sight  would  seem  to  be 
contradictory  :  her  capability  for  seeing  through  all 
pretentiousness  led  her  to  denounce  all  false  roman- 
ticism, as  we  see  in  her  counterblast  to  The  Mysteries 
of  Udolpho.  Northanger  Abbey  gave  the  death-blow 
to  the  hysteria  caused  by  Mrs  Ann  Radcliffe ;  her 
irony  seems  almost  at  times  to  descend  to  acerbity 
.  .  .  and  yet  at  the  same  time  her  collateral  sense  of 
humour  made  her  kindly  disposed  and  magnanimous 
in  her  sympathies  to  creatures  whom  other  artists 
would  have  condemned  without  mercy.  That  is,  she 
seems  to  combine,  as  Andrew  Lang  said,  gentleness 
with  a  certain  hardness  of  heart,  which  are  difficult 
to  reconcile  until  we  have  made  a  close  study  of  her 
methods. 

No  greater  mistake  could  possibly  be  made  than  to 
imagine  her  as  a  soured  old  maid,  though  the  bust 
erected  to  her  memory  in  the  Pump  Room  at  Bath 
goes  a  long  way  to  give  that  impression. 

On  the  contrary,  she  was  distinctly  pretty,  sunny- 
natured,  gay  even  to  frivolity,  an  accomplished  con- 
versationalist, a  singer  and  a  musician,  possessed  of 
a  natural  aptitude  for  and  skill  in  games,  extraordi- 
narily well-balanced  and  sane  in  her  outlook  .  .  . 


56  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

an  ideal  wife,  one  would  suppose,  for  any  cultured 
man  of  the  world.  It  is  only  by  understanding  these 
facts  about  her  that  we  realise  the  meaning  of  what 
Professor  Saintsbury  calls  the  "  livingness  "  of  her 
work.  She  writes  as  one  who  has,  as  Lady  Ritchie 
puts  it,  "  a  natural  genius  for  life."  That  she  enjoyed 
her  forty-two  years  to  the  full  we  cannot  doubt.  She 
was  no  Shelley,  a  genius  of  moods,  alternately  in 
heaven  or  hell ;  she  p\u*sued  an  even  path  of  placidity 
and  content,  neither  troubling  herself  overmuch  with 
the  perplexities  that  obsess  the  mind  of  the  social  re- 
former nor  harassed  with  religious  doubts. 

Suffering  does  not  make  her  suicidal,  nor  has  she 
any  of  that  divine  discontent  which  we  usually  asso- 
ciate with  our  best  writers.  How  many  of  our  famous 
men  of  letters  were  able  to  work  in  the  midst  of 
domestic  interruption  and  make  no  sign  of  impatience  ? 
It  is  a  small  point,  but  quite  an  illuminating  one. 

She  had  no  private  study.  As  she  worked  with 
the  others  in  the  common  sitting-room  she  would 
sometimes  burst  out  laughing,  go  to  her  desk  and 
write  something  down,  and  then  go  back  to  her  work 
again  and  say  nothing. 

It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  her  geniality  was  not 
of  that  vapid  sort  that  proceeds  from  ignorance  or 
wilful  blindness  to  human  fatuity  and  vice,  that  sings 
to  the  shallow,  optimistic  tune  that  "  all  is  for  the 
best  in  the  best  of  all  possible  worlds."  It  is  to  her 
everlasting  credit  that  although  she  was  under  no 
delusions  as  to  the  state  of  humanity,  she  neither 
condemned  it  nor  sneered  at  it ;  she  had  nothing  of 
the  cynic  in  her  temperament.  There  have,  of  course, 
been  critics  who  have  appended  that  libellous  label 
to  her,  but  they  belong  to  the  same  category  which 
stigmatises  Thackeray  and  Swift  as  possessing  the 


JANE  AUSTEN  57 

same  trait.  How  any  one  with  her  genius  for  laughter 
and  affection,  her  interest  in  mankind,  or  her  clear- 
sightedness could  be  accused  of  cynicism,  which  is  a 
property  of  the  owl  and  bat  and  donkey  in  humanity, 
I  do  not  understand.  She  is  a  master  of  irony  and 
satire,  it  is  true ;  but  these  are  incompatible  with 
misanthropy,  the  touch-stone  of  cynicism ;  of  this 
she  had  not  a  trace.  She  is  not  of  those  who  were 
disillusioned  by  the  fever  and  the  weariness  and  the 
fret  of  life.  She  was  no  pessimistic  Teuton  philo- 
sopher ;  she  was  too  busy  taking  notes  on  the  people 
with  whom  she  came  into  contact  to  spend  time  in 
moralising.  She  was  essentially  of  a  happy  nature, 
and  kept  a  strong  curb  on  her  emotions  ;  that  she 
felt  deeply  is  probable,  that  she  ever  gave  full  vent 
to  her  feelings  we  instinctively  know  to  be  untrue. 
Her  love  tragedy,  if  she  had  one,  was  not  allowed  to 
spoil  her  life  ;  she  may  very  well  have  passed  through 
the  depths,  but  she  emerged  from  the  conflict  vic- 
torious, having  battered  down  the  forces  of  darkness, 
and  continued  to  irradiate  sweetness  and  light  in 
her  books  as  well  as  in  her  life. 

Other  authors  might  easily  have  been  discomfited 
by  the  reception  given  to  their  work  by  publishers 
if  a  first  manuscript  had  been  rejected  by  return  of 
post  as  hers  was  in  the  case  of  Pride  and  Prejudice. 
Not  so  Jane  Austen  ;  she  continued  to  write  almost 
until  the  day  of  her  death,  sure  of  the  verdict  of 
posterity,  the  only  judgment  upon  which  genius  really 
relies.  She  knew  that  her  appeal  was  universal  and 
not  liable  to  grow  dim  with  the  passage  of  years. 
Her  satire  and  humour  are  as  fresh  to-day  as  ever 
they  were,  and  as  an  antidote  to  the  horrors  of  our 
time  no  other  author  can  compare  with  her. 


58  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

II 

We  commonly  find  that  if  we  want  to  test  the  truth 
about  an  author,  a  perusal  of  his  or  her  correspondence 
is  of  the  greatest  value  to  enable  us  to  decide  how 
far  the  judgments  we  have  formed  from  their  serious 
work  are  accurate.  In  their  letters  we  take  them  off 
their  guard ;  they  are  in  undress,  no  longer  the 
mouthpieces  of  divine  inspiration,  but  flesh  and  blood 
like  ourselves. 

Jane  Austen's  almost  racy  letters  to  her  sister  shed 
a  flood  of  light  on  her  character  and  help  us  still 
further  to  dot  the  "  i's  "  and  cross  the  "  t's  "  of 
criticism. 

They  are  for  the  most  part  compositions  of  a  quite 
hght  and  trivial  nature,  dwelling  on  topics  such  as 
might  interest  any  country-bred  girl.  Dress  looms 
large,  and  so  does  small-talk  about  the  everyday 
round  of  work  and  amusement,  people  met,  dances, 
and  the  like.  But  all  through  them  we  see  the  same 
shrewd.  Puck-like  spirit  darting  hither  and  thither, 
we  hear  the  silvery  laughter  of  the  girl  who  painted 
Mr  Collins  and  Mrs  Jennings  ;  they  are  obviously 
written  by  a  girl  who  cannot  help  seeing  the  funny 
side  of  everything,  who  is  vividly  interested  in  people 
and  their  idiosyncrasies  ;  the  deeper  things  in  life 
are  not  discussed,  not  because  she  was  shallow,  but 
because  there  are  some  things  which  language  is 
incapable  of  expressing,  where  silence  is  the  only  true 
speech.  Those  traces  of  bitterness  which  occasionally 
disturb  us  in  her  novels  appear  again  here. 

"  Only  think  of  Mrs  Holder  being  dead  !  Poor 
woman,  she  has  done  the  only  thing  in  the  world 
she  could  possibly  do  to  make  one  cease  to  abuse 
her,"  may  stand  as  a  tjrpical  example  out  of  many ; 


JANE  AUSTEN  59 

but  no  one  could  contend  that  such  phrases  are 
deliberately  cynical;  at  the  worst  they  are  but 
thoughtless  witticisms,  and  really  hurt  no  one.  Jane 
Austen  was  entirely  devoid  of  malice.  She  suffered 
fools.«nore  or  less  gladly ;  she  would  try  the  barb  of 
irony  to  laugh  them  out  of  their  folly,  but  they  were 
not  like  those  others,  at  the  opposite  end  of  the  scale, 
"  pictures  of  perfection,"  which  she  confesses  made 
her  sick  and  wicked. 

The  puzzle  is  that  so  highly  gifted  and  all-seeing 
a  genius  should  have  adopted  such  a  detached, 
tolerant  attitude  towards  humanity.  There  have 
been  many  who  have  found  fault  with  her  for  not 
waxing  indignant  at  the  follies  of  society.  These 
assert  that  she  has  no  moral  sense,  but  surely  to 
instil  into  us  the  necessity  for  mutual  tolerance  and 
unfailing  humour  in  our  dealings  with  our  neighbours 
is  in  itself  a  moral  act  of  the  highest  order. 

The  first  thing  that  strikes  any  one  who  has  tried 
to  read  Jane  Austen's  novels  aloud  is  the  dramatic 
power  displayed  in  the  conversations.  No  novelist 
ever  made  his  or  her  characters  express  themselves 
so  simply  or  forcibly  in  their  parts  as  she  does.  It 
would  seem  that  we  have  lost  in  her  one  of  our 
greatest  playwrights.  The  unfolding  of  character  in 
dialogue  has  not  been  better  done  by  any  of  our 
dramatists,  and  has  certainly  not  been  approached 
by  any  other  novelist.  No  novels  make  so  immediate 
an  appeal  when  declaimed  as  hers  do.  Even  youthful 
audiences  who  are  popularly  supposed  to  be  incapable 
of  appreciating  the  subtlety  of  her  wit  are  quickly 
entranced. 

Think  for  a  moment  of  that  famous  second  chapter 
in  Sense  and  Sensibilityy  where  Mr  John  Dashwood 
is  converted  by  his  wife  with  regard  to  his  ideas  as 


60  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

to  their  duty  to  his  widowed  sister  and  her  daughters. 
It  is  conceived  and  executed  with  an  exactness  of 
phrase  and  economy  of  words  that  calls  to  mind  that 
parallel  scene  in  King  Lear  where  the  old  man  is  de- 
prived of  his  retinue. 

With  what  deft  strokes  are  we  shown  the  whole 
of  a  person's  character  in  one  short,  ironic  sentence. 

"  Mrs  Jennings  was  a  widow,  with  an  ample  join- 
ture. She  had  only  two  daughters,  both  of  whom 
she  had  lived  to  see  respectably  married,  and  she  had 
now,  therefore,  nothing  to  do  but  to  marry  all  the 
rest  of  the  world." 

The  vulgarity  of  the  Steele  family  is  shown  in 
their  use  of  "  prodigious,"  "  vast,"  "  beau,"  and  the 
like  words,  in  omitting  the  personal  pronoun  in  their 
correspondence ;  we  recognise  the  type  at  once. 
That  is  the  secret  of  Jane  Austen's  power  :  she  has 
seized  upon  the  salient,  ineradicable  characteristics 
of  the  type  which  is  always  with  us  ;  the  unstable 
lover,  the  gossiping,  scandal-mongering  old  dame,  the 
young  impressionable  girl  who  could  not  bear  the 
thought  of  her  sister  marrying  a  man  with  so  little 
"  sensibility  "  that  he  could  not  read  the  poets  with 
understanding  or  fire,  the  staunch,  sound,  unselfish 
heroine  who  bears  her  own  tragedy  without  any  out- 
ward sign,  but  spends  herself  in  sympathising  with 
weaker  natures  in  their  misfortunes  ;  the  pedant, 
the  snob,  the  haughty,  the  supercilious,  the  im- 
pertinent ...  all  are  here  drawn  with  unerring 
accuracy. 

I  know  nothing  in  our  literature  to  compare  with 
the  concluding  paragraphs  of  Sense  and  Sensibility. 
Ninety-nine  out  of  every  hundred  authors  would  have 
made  Marianne  a  tragic  heroine,  but  Jane  Austen 
realised  that  she  was  not  great  enough  for  that ; 


JANE  AUSTEN  61 

she  was  audacious  enough  to  risk  an  anticHmax  in 
order  to  secure  verisimilitude. 

"  Marianne  Dashwood  was  bom  to  an  extraordinary 
fate.  She  was  born  to  discover  the  falsehood  of  her 
own  opinions,  and  to  counteract  by  her  conduct  her 
most  favourite  maxims.  She  was  born  to  overcome 
an  affection  formed  so  late  in  life  as  at  seventeen, 
and  with  no  sentiment  superior  to  strong  esteem  and 
lively  friendship,  voluntarily  to  give  her  hand  to 
another  ! — and  that  other  a  man  who  had  suffered 
no  less  than  herself,  under  the  event  of  a  former 
attachment,  whom,  two  years  before,  she  had  con- 
sidered too  old  to  be  married,  and  who  still  sought 
the  constitutional  safeguard  of  a  flannel  waist- 
coat !  " 

As  for  the  villain,  Willoughby,  we  read  that  "  he 
lived  to  exert,  and  frequently  to  enjoy  himself.  His 
wife  was  not  always  out  of  humour,  nor  his  home 
always  uncomfortable  ;  and  in  his  breed  of  horses  and 
dogs  he  found  no  inconsiderable  degree  of  domestic 
felicity." 

The  opening  sentences  of  Pride  and  Prejudice  might 
almost  be  taken  as  a  test  of  our  ability  to  appreciate 
Jane  Austen.  She  has  a  knack  of  beginning  in  an 
exhilarating,  startling  way  on  most  occasions,  but  it 
may  well  be  doubted  whether  any  novel  starts  quite 
so  happily  as  this  : 

"It  is  a  truth  universally  acknowledged  that  a 
single  man  in  possession  of  a  good  fortune  must  be 
in  want  of  a  wife  " — after  which  delightful  touch  of 
irony  we  are  immediately  introduced  to  Mr  and 
Mrs  Bennet,  who  proceed  to  squabble  over  their 
daughters'  chances  of  securing  the  rich  young  stranger's 
hand  and  purse  in  a  dialogue  which  touches  the  top 
note  of  humour. 


62  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

Elizabeth  Bennet  is  Jane  Austen's  as  she  is  nearly 
every  one  else's  favourite  heroine. 

"  I  must  confess,"  she  writes  to  her  sister,  "  that 
I  think  her  as  delightful  a  creature  as  ever  appeared 
in  print."  On  her  Jane  Austen  has  lavished  the  best 
of  her  own  inimitable  humour,  high  spirits,  gaiety 
and  courage,  so  that  she  takes  high  place  among  the 
great  women  in  fiction,  and  becomes  no  mean  com- 
panion for  even  Clara  Middleton  or  Clarissa  Harlowe. 

The  alternate  attraction  for  and  repulsion  from 
Darcy  which  Elizabeth  felt  is  dra\vn  with  the  sure 
hand  of  the  great  creator ;  and  then,  while  we 
are  still  absorbed  in  the  swaying  fortunes  of  the 
principals,  there  quietly  creeps  upon  the  scene 
one  of  the  most  famous  characters  in  comedy,  Mr 
Collins.  His  interview  with  Elizabeth  when  he 
formally  proposes  to  her  is  in  Jane  Austen's  richest 
and  happiest  style.  So  long  as  humour  lasts  that 
chapter  cannot  fail  to  bring  joy  to  the  human  heart. 
It  is  as  universal  in  its  appeal  as  the  "  Bottom  " 
scenes  in  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream  (Bottom  was, 
after  all,  only  Mr  Collins  in  one  stage  of  society  as 
Dogberry  was  Mr  Collins  in  another)  or  the  Falstaff 
episodes  at  Gad's  Hill  and  Eastcheap. 

Lady  Catherine  de  Bourgh,  who  "  if  she  accepted 
any  refreshments  seemed  to  do  it  only  for  the  sake 
of  finding  out  that  Mrs  Collins's  joints  of  meat  were 
too  large  for  her  family,"  is  another  character  over 
whom  the  Comic  Spirit  sheds  its  harmless  but  mirth- 
provoking  rays.  The  whole  novel  abounds  in  rich 
personalities  without  whom  the  world  would  be  the 
poorer,  but  we  are  most  of  all  concerned  with  the 
happiness  of  Elizabeth,  who,  like  others  of  Jane 
Austen's  heroines,  finds  that  true  love  which  is  all- 
powerful  can  spring  from  "  the  cold  fountain  of  grati- 


JANE  AUSTEN  68 

tude  no  less  than  from  the  volcano  of  passion." 
Jane  Austen's  lovers  are  remarkably  free  from 
passion. 

After  Pride  and  Prejudice,  in  popular  estimation, 
comes  Mansfield  Park.  Tennyson,  for  one,  preferred 
the  latter,  but  the  general  run  of  readers  know  their 
Pride  and  Prejudice  well  and  Mansfield  Park  not  at 
all.  There  is,  of  course,  more  emotion  and  drama  in 
the  earlier  of  the  two,  but  Mansfield  Park  is  freer 
from  exaggeration  and  contains  the  never-to-be- 
forgotten  impertinent  and  meddlesome  Mrs  Norris. 
In  no  novel  do  we  so  quickly  pick  up  the  thread  of 
the  plot ;  by  the  third  page,  as  Mr  Cornish  says,  we 
are  quite  at  home,  know  everybody,  and  even  begin 
to  look  forward  to  the  final  event. 

After  the  ill-natured  Mrs  Norris,  who  will  not  ex- 
tend her  hospitality  to  Fanny  Price  because  "  I 
should  not  have  a  bed  to  give  her,  foril  must  keep 
a  spare  room  for  a  friend,"  Jane  Austen  probably 
hated  her  sister.  Lady  Bertram,  more  than  most  of 
her  other  odious  characters. 

"  She  was  a  woman  who  spent  her  days  in  sitting 
nicely  dressed  on  a  sofa,  doing  some  long  pieces  of 
needlework,  of  little  use  and  no  beauty,  thinking  more 
of  her  pug  than  her  children,  but  very  indulgent  to  the 
latter  when  it  did  not  put  herself  to  inconvenience." 

In  this  novel  we  see  strongly  brought  out  a  trait 
that  is  particularly  noticeable  in  all  Jane  Austen's 
novels,  the  mutual  confidence  and  sincerity  of  feeling 
displayed  between  brother  and  sister :  she  never 
tires  of  emphasising  this  side  of  life. 

Emma  is  the  most  consistently  cheerful  of  all  the 
novels.  E.  V.  Lucas  considers  it  to  be  her  best,  her 
ripest,  and  her  richest,  the  most  "  readable-again  " 
book  in  the  world.     Comedy  reigns   supreme,  with 


64  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

never  the  vestige  of  a  cloud  to  spoil  the  serenity  and 
the  joy.  No  one  is  very  wealthy  or  very  poor  :  the 
whole  action  takes  place  in  the  village  of  Highbury 
among  a  set  of  people  who  meet  daily.  The  gradual 
dawn  and  growth  of  love  between  Knightley  and 
Emma,  who  makes  matches  for  every  one  but  herself, 
is  uncannily  well  brought  home  to  the  reader,  and 
their  final  love-scene  is  one  of  the  happiest  in  litera- 
ture. The  vulgar  and  patronising  ••  Mrs  Elton  and 
talkative  Miss  Bates  are  a  joy  for  ever,  particularly 
the  latter,  who,  though  "  neither  young,  handsome, 
rich,  nor  married,  without  beauty  and  cleverness, 
was  yet  happy  and  contented.  She  loved  everybody, 
thought  herself  a  most  fortunate  creature  and  sur- 
rounded with  blessings." 

Northanger  Abbey  is  most  interesting  because  of  its 
historical  value  as  an  attack  on  the  artificial  school 
of  romanticism  which  was  so  popular  among  young 
girls  of  that  time.  Catherine  Morland's  discovery  of 
the  roll  of  paper  which  she  is  convinced  are  love- 
letters  is  one  of  the  most  successfully  satiric  studies 
in  the  whole  range  of  Jane  Austen's  work. 

"  Darkness  impenetrable  and  inunovable  filled  the 
room.  A  violent  gust  of  wind,  rising  with  sudden 
fury,  added  fresh  horror  to  the  moment.  .  .  .  Human 
nature  could  support  no  more.  .  .  .  Groping  her  way 
to  the  bed,  she  jumped  hastily  in,  and  sought  some 
suspension  of  agony  by  creeping  far  underneath  the 
clothes.  .  .  .  The  storm  still  raged.  .  .  .  Hour  after 
hour  passed  away,  and  the  wearied  Catherine  had 
heard  three  proclaimed  by  all  the  clocks  in  the  house 
before  the  tempest  subsided  and  she  unknowingly  fell 
fast  asleep.  She  was  awaked  the  next  morning  at 
eight  o'clock  by  Jthe  housemaid's  opening  her  mndow- 
shutter.     She  flew  to  the  mysterious  manuscript.     If 


JANE  AUSTEN  65 

the  evidence  of  sight  might  be  trusted,  she  held  a 
washing-bill  in  her  hand." 

No  longer  could  the  Catherine  Morlands  dare  to 
put  any  faith  in  the  style  of  literature  made  popular 
by  The  Castle  ofOtranio,  or  The  Mysteries  of  Udolpho. 
By  this  one  blow  did  Jane  Austen  clear  the  ground 
for  the  manly,  healthy,  historical  romance  of  Scott  and 
disperse  the  whole  gang  of  foolish  frighteners  of  youth 
who  filled  the  minds  of  young  girls  with  unimaginable 
horrors  and  sentimental  tomfoolery. 

Persuasion,  the  last  of  her  novels,  begins  with  as 
famous  a  sentence  as  that  which  I  quoted  from  Pride 
and  Prejudice,  describing  the  joy  which  Sir  Walter 
Elliot  took  in  "  the  Snob's  Bible,"  the  Baronetage, 
and  is  famous  for  the  fact  that  it  contains  about  the 
only  memorable  incident  recorded  in  any  of  her  work  : 
the  accident  that  befell  Louisa  Musgrove  on  the  Cobb 
at  Lyme  Regis.  Here,  too,  occurs  one  of  those  rare 
descriptions  of  natural  scenery,  of  which,  as  a  rule, 
Jane  Austen  is  so  sparing.  She  shows  that  she  could 
observe,  when  she  wished,  inanimate  objects  in  Nature 
with  as  acute  an  eye  as  she  usually  brought  to  bear 
on  humanity.  It  was  only  that  her  fellow-men 
interested  her  more  than  Nature  did.  She  watches 
them  lynx-eyed,  and,  as  her  biographer  says,  "  she 
never  drops  a  stitch."  The  reason  is  not  so  much 
that  she  took  infinite  trouble,  though  no  doubt  she 
did,  as  that  everything  was  actual  to  her,  as  in  his 
larger  historical  manner  everything  was  actual  to 
Macaulay. 

In  all  her  gallery,  as  Macaulay  noticed,  she  left 
scarcely  a  single  caricature,  and  it  is  in  this  that  Jane 
Austen  approaches  most  nearly  to  the  manner  of 
Shakespeare.  To  be  humorous,  it  has  often  been 
pointed  out,  it  is  necessary  to  exaggerate  abundantly. 

E 


66  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

Jane  Austen  has  gone  a  long  way  to  refute  what  else 
might  seem  an  irrefutable  argument. 

Scott  and  Tennyson  both  spoke  of  her  work  in 
glowing  terms,  and  from  their  day  to  this  she  has 
had  no  detractors  among  the  greatest  critics  (with  the 
sole  exception  of  Charlotte  Bronte),  but  only  increased 
the  circle  of  her  readers. 

Her  plots,  like  Shakespeare's,  were  not  in  a  high 
degree  original  or  ingenious  ;  her  work  is  almost  devoid 
of  incident :  she  repeats,  not  only  her  situations,  but 
in  a  lesser  degree  her  characters. 

But,  as  G.  K.  Chesterton  says,  no  other  woman 
has  been  able  to  capture  the  complete  common  sense 
of  Jane  Austen.  She  knew  what  she  knew,  like  a 
sound  dogmatist ;  she  did  not  know  what  she  did 
not  know,  like  a  sound  agnostic  :  she  knew  more 
about  men  than  most  women,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  she  is  commonly  supposed  to  have  been  pro- 
tected from  truth.  If  that  was  so,  it  was  precious 
Uttle  of  truth  that  was  protected  from  her.  When 
Darcy  says,  "  I  have  been  a  selfish  being  all  my  life 
in  practice  though  not  in  theory ^''^  he  approaches  the 
complete  confession  of  the  intelligent  male. 

Womanly  foibles  have  never  before  been  so  merci- 
lessly exposed ;  compared  with  her  astringent  tonic 
properties,  the  satire  of  Addison  or  Steele  is  as  barley 
water  is  to  ammonia.  Her  pen  has  the  point  of  a 
stencil  and  the  sharpness  of  a  razor-edge  :  there  is 
nothing  in  her  work  of  the  vague  or  the  shadowy ; 
every  character  stands  out  like  a  cameo,  every  sentence 
was  true  to  the  ordinary  speech  of  her  day,  and  yet 
possesses  that  unfathomable  universal  quality  which 
makes  it  ring  as  fresh  and  as  true  after  a  hundred 
years  as  it  did  on  the  day  when  it  was  first  written. 


VII 

CLEMENCE  DANE  • 

MISS  CLEMENCE  DANE  in  Regiment  of 
Women  has  startled  me  more  than  any 
writer  on  education  whose  work  I  have 
ever  read.  Why  the  book  was  not  censored  I  cannot 
understand.  Those  of  us  whose  prime  care  in  life  it 
is  to  see  a  wholesale  reform  in  education  must  owe 
her  a  very  considerable  debt,  for  she  has  attacked 
the  existing  system  with  an  amazing  insight  into  its 
weakest  and  most  vulnerable  places.  I  have  spent 
many  years  in  trying  to  prove  that  our  great  stum- 
bling-block was  the  lack  of  interest  in  intellectual  and 
artistic  occupations,  and  that  all  would  be  well  if  we 
could  once  stimulate  the  youth  of  the  country  to  care 
about  learning  in  the  same  degree  that  it  cares  about 
athletics — and  now  a  self-confessed  amateur  comes 
along  and  knocks  all  my  pet  theories  down  and  tells 
us  that  the  problem  is  quite  different. 

To  put  it  tersely,  it  is  not  the  brain,  but  sex  that 
is  wrongly  developed  and  neglected.  Every  school- 
master knows  that  one  of  the  most  perplexing  features 
of  boarding-school  life  lies  in  the  question  of  boy- 
friendships.  We  of  the  public  schools  rigorously 
keep  boys  of  sixteen  and  over  apart  from  the  juniors. 
In  spite,  however,  of  the  harshest  rules  (perhaps 
because  of  them,  in  some  instances)  irregular  friend- 
ships are  formed,  hideous  scandals  take  place,  and 
wholesale  expulsions  follow. 

On  the  face  of  it  there  would  appear  to  be  little 

V 


68  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

harm  in  these  friendships,  and  if  these  led  to  nothing 
more  than  friendships  we  should  encourage  rather 
than  hinder  them.  But  strange  as  it  may  sound  to 
the  uninitiated,  these  friendships  rapidly  develop  into 
love-affairs,  and  the  element  of  passion  is  introduced. 
We  talk  of  boys  "  being  keen  "  on  each  other,  of 
girls  having  "  a  craze  "  for  one  another.  If  we  could 
dismiss  these  cases  as  mere  ebullitions  of  "  sloshy  " 
sentiment  we  might  perhaps  have  cause  to  complain 
that  they  were  a  waste  of  time,  but  we  could  scarcely 
condemn  them  as  pernicious. 

I  do  not  wish  in  a  paper  on  the  art  of  the  novel  to 
introduce  a  disquisition  on  unnatural  vice,  but  I  never 
met  an  author  who  dared  even  to  suggest  the  preva- 
lence of  this  poisonous  habit  in  schools.  We  have 
bound  ourself  in  a  conspiracy  of  silence  to  the  detri- 
ment of  all  progress.  It  is  quite  time  we  started  to 
enlighten  the  parents  of  our  charges.  But  while 
we  professionals  funk  the  problem,  a  mere  outsider 
throws  the  bomb  with  complete  assurance  and  leaves 
us  aghast  .  .  .  not  because  she  joins  with  our  un- 
spoken thoughts,  and  decides  that  the  imagination 
of  a  child's  heart  is  unclean,  but  because  she  wishes 
to  make  all  of  us — schoolmasters  and  mistresses — sit 
up  and  take  stock  of  our  own  position  in  the  matter. 

It  is  we  who  are  to  blame,  it  seems.  Instead  of 
keeping  to  our  role  of  stem  autocrat,  unapproachable 
'despot,  we  choose  to  descend  from  our  dais,  become 
friendly  and  companionable  and  inspire  hero-  and 
heroine- worship,  quite  without  meaning  to.  A  kindly 
word  here,  encouragement  over  a  piece  of  work,  an 
inspired  talk  about  History  or  Mathematics  or 
Divinity  (even  the  dullest  of  us  is  inspired  some- 
times), and  we  are  regarded  as  only  a  little  inferior 
to  the  Deity :    our  lightest  word  is  regarded  as  a 


CLEMENCE  DANE  69 

dictum  straight  from  Heaven,  our  ill-considered  judg- 
ments as  the  voice  of  God.  I  quite  grant  at  the  outset 
that  I  cannot  seriously  bring  myself  to  believe,  even 
after  fifteen  years'  experience,  that  I  have  ever  caused 
any  boy  of  any  age  to  regard  me  with  any  feeling 
in  any  way  related  to  hero-worship.  I  have  been 
regarded  as  slightly  mad,  slack,  a  martinet,  impartial, 
grossly  unfair,  an  impractical  idealist,  shockingly 
material,  a  human  companion,  an  inhuman  beast, 
almost  everything  except  a  god.  Most  schoolmasters 
among  my  very  varied  acquaintance  would  confess 
to  much  the  same  experience.  Girls  may  be  more 
inclined  to  bestow  their  affections  passionately  (I  was 
going  to  say  unhealthily)  on  their  mistresses  than  boys 
do  on  their  masters,  but  no  one  in  his  senses  would 
conclude  from  this  that  a  boy  is  less  passionate  than 
a  girl :  to  whom  then  does  he  turn,  failing  his  masters  ? 
On  his  companions,  not  usually  of  the  same  age. 
Here  lies  the  danger  of  bringing  up  boys  of  all  ages 
from  thirteen  to  nineteen  together.  There  is  no 
question  that  such  companionships  lead  to  terrible 
situations  and  unmentionable  crimes. 

The  point  is  how  to  avoid  them.  By  far  the  best 
thing  to  do  to  begin  with  is  to  read  Clemence  Dane. 
Regiment  of  Women  is  an  astounding  novel  to  launch 
on  the  world  as  one's  initial  effort.  It  requires 
courage  to  attempt  to  interest  a  public,  nourished 
on  love-stories,  a  public  exceedingly  conservative  in 
its  tastes — in  the  daily  round  of  a  girls'  school. 
Yet  she  grips  our  attention  at  once  and  never  for  a 
moment  loses  it. 

All  the  characters  are  drawn  with  an  almost  diabolic 
insight  into  the  human  mind.  The  most  important 
person  is  a  mistress,  Clare  Hartill,  whose  one  aim  in 
life  is  to  surround  herself  with  youthful  proteges  and 


70  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

make  them  submit  themselves  wholly  to  her  influence, 
alternately  fawning  upon  them  and  neglecting  them. 
She  it  is  who  is  chosen  to  exemplify  the  force  of  John 
Knox's  judgment  that  "  the  monstrous  empire  of  a 
cruell  woman  we  knowe  to  be  the  onlie  occasion  of  all 
these  miseries  "  ;  the  miseries  being  inflicted  on  an 
imaginative  lonely  child  of  thirteen  who  commits  suicide 
because  her  mistress  alternately  pets  and  bullies  her, 
and  a  young  assistant  mistress  who  has  to  choose 
between  her  devotion  to  the  same  tyrant  and  her 
love  for  a  man. 

Miss  Dane  puts  her  case  with  a  force  which  is 
undeniable,  emphasising  each  incident  with  such  care 
and  full  detail  that  the  denoiiement  is  quite  inevitable, 
and  there  is  no  trace  of  the  machinery,  no  noise  of 
engine  or  whirring  of  wheels  as  one  would  expect 
after  hearing  the  bare  outlines  of  the  story. 

It  is  inevitable  that  the  pretty,  young,  enthusiastic, 
simple-minded  Alwynne  should  fall  a  prey  to  Clare 
Hartill's  carefully-spread  net,  and  just  as  inevitable 
that  the  lonely  thirteen-year-old  Louise  should  respond 
to  Clare's  attentions. 

That  Louise  should  be  precocious  in  her  reading, 
acting,  and  thinking  is  no  anomaly.  Every  school- 
master and  mistress  must  know  of  hundreds  of  cases 
where  a  quite  young  child  shows  aesthetic  appreciation 
of  a  most  advanced  and  mature  kind  while  he  or  she 
retains  the  most  childlike  attitude  to  many  of  the 
problems  of  life  which  are  no  longer  problems  to  the 
adult,  either  because  they  are  solved  or  shelved  sine 
die.  Louise,  for  instance,  can  talk  glibly  about  Mere- 
dith, but  is  completely  woebegone  when  she  finds  that 
her  mistress  is  ignorant  of  the  Bible  and  will  not 
commit  herself  to  any  positive  assertions  about  God. 
It  is  hard  for  a  child  to  understand  that  when  we  grow 


CLEMENCE  DANE  71 

up  we  are  either  completely  sure  or  magnificently 
careless  about  immortality  and  a  Deity. 

There  are  critics  who  rebel  against  the  suicide 
incident :  they  deny  that  any  small  girl  could  feel 
so  depressed  at  the  harshness  of  a  beloved  mistress 
as  to  kill  herself.  But  Louise,  to  me  at  least,  rings 
true  no  less  in  her  death  than  in  her  life.  She  is  ex- 
ceptionally impressionable  and  came  under  a  ghoulish 
influence  :  taking  the  part  of  Arthur  in  King  John  had 
unsettled  her  completely.  Her  failure  to  satisfy,  her 
inability  to  fathom,  the  shallows  of  Clare's  mind,  led 
her  to  destroy  herself  rather  than  continue  an  exist- 
ence which  had  suddenly,  inexplicably,  become  un- 
bearably hateful.  After  all,  boys  and  girls  at  school 
have  committed  suicide  in  real  life  before  now,  not 
solely  because  they  failed  to  pass  examinations. 
There  are  more  ways  than  one  even  of  killing  a 
child. 

It  may  be  urged,  not  unreasonably,  that  Miss  Dane 
is  altogether  too  bitter :  that  she  feels  deeply  is 
evident  on  every  page,  that  she  is  extremely  sensitive 
even  to  the  least  sinister  usage  must  be  plain  to 
every  one.  Sensibility  and  depth  of  emotion  lead 
to  bitterness,  if  not  cynicism,  when  thwarted,  and  it 
is  possible  to  be  thwarted  objectively.  How  else 
account  for  such  a  passage  as  this  ? 

"  Henrietta  Vigers  was  forty-seven  when  she  left. 
She  had  spent  youth  and  prime  at  the  school,  and 
had  nothing  more  to  sell.  She  had  neither  certificates 
nor  recommendations  behind  her.  She  was  hampered 
by  her  aggressive  gentility.  Out  of  a  £50-salary  she 
had  scraped  together  £500.  Invested  daringly  it 
yielded  her  £25  a  year.  She  had  no  friends  outside 
the  school.  She  left  none  within  it.  Miss  Marsham 
presented  her  with  a  gold  watch,  decorously  inscribed, 


Tl  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

the  schcK)l  with  a  handsomely  bound  edition  of  Shake- 
speare.    Heaven  knows  what  became  of  her.'* 

Miss  Dane  obsessed  by  the  failm-e  of  the  segregated 
system  advocates  by  indirect  means  the  co-educational 
policy  as  a  solution.  It  is  at  this  point  in  her  story 
that  we  feel  a  legitimate  complaint.  Her  book  is  one 
of  those  very  rare  examples  of  propagandist  art :  she 
interests  us  enormously  in  her  destructive  mood  ;  she 
is  not  so  successful  in  convincing  us  about  the  practical 
results  of  adopting  her  Utopia.  That  is  the  first 
blow :  the  second  is  her  failure  to  satisfy  us  with 
her  hero.  Roger  is  a  first-class  prig,  quite  impossibly 
wooden.  The  amazing  thing  is  that  Alwynne  seems 
to  realise  the  enormity  of  the  system  to  which  she  had 
given  her  life-blood  when  she  attempts  to  construct  her 
story  anew  for  his  sake.  Talking  of  Louise's  passion 
for  Clare  she  hits  at  last  on  the  truth.  "  If  she  had 
been  grown-up  it  would  have  been  like  being  in  love." 
The  appalling  tragedy  of  the  child's  suicide,  which 
had  gone  far  to  destroy  her  mental  balance,  could 
apparently  be  dispelled  by  Roger's  "  all-understanding 
sympathy."  To  me  it  seems  rather  that  the  gloom 
is  dispelled  and  the  ghost  raised  by  Alwynne's  own 
sexual  impulses  being  stimulated  :  she  meets  for  the 
first  time  in  her  life  a  man  who  is  interested  in  her  : 
from  that  moment  the  conflict  is  entirely  one-sided. 
We  know  that  the  call  of  Nature  will  be  more  insistent 
than  the  barren  unnatural  cry  of  the  lacerated  selfish 
ell- woman  (ell -woman  is  the  nearest  word  I  can  get 
to  define  what  has  no  adequate  definition,  but  if  we 
could  imagine  the  "wretched  wight "  in  Keats'  poem 
to  be  a  woman,  then  Clare  Hartill  is  a  perfect  example 
of  La  Belle  Dame  sans  Merci.  After  all,  "  vampire  " 
is  Elsbeth's  own  word  for  her,  and  she  had  known 
her  longer  than  any  other  person  in  the  book).     It  is 


CLEMENCE  DANE  T8 

perhaps  Miss  Dane's  greatest  triumph  that  she  can 
make  us  almost  sympathise  with  the  bloodsucker 
when  we  see  her  outwitted  by  Nature  :  she  puts  up 
a  splendid  fight  against  overwhelming  odds,  but  all- 
powerful  Nature  has  only  to  produce  the  dullest  type 
of  man  and  all  the  elaborated  schemes  of  the  spiritual 
pervert  fall  to  pieces. 

The  difficulty  with  Regiment  of  Women  is  that  the 
reader  gets  so  thrilled  with  the  excitement  and  novelty 
of  the  idea  that  he  is  inclined  to  forget  the  artistry. 
It  is  only  on  a  third  or  fourth  reading  that  one  begins  to 
realise  the  consummate  compactness  of  the  language  : 
here  are  no  loose  trimmings,  no  irregular  irrelevancies. 
Slow  but  inexorable  are  the  wheels  of  fate,  and  good 
artist  as  she  is,  Miss  Dane  presents  her  impression 
of  life  and  leaves  it  to  each  of  us  to  draw  his  own 
conclusions,  if  conclusions  are  necessary.  I  can  fore- 
see many  worthy  schoolmistresses,  imbued  with  the 
purest  ideals,  enthusiastic,  morally  and  spiritually 
energetic,  pulling  themselves  up  sharp  and  asking 
themselves  whether  they  are  not  liable  to  fall  into 
this  most  insidious  of  all  temptations :  "In  the 
effort  to  control  the  spirit  of  a  pupil,  to  make  our 
own  approval  his  test,  and  mould  him  by  the  stress 
of  our  own  pressure — in  the  ambition  to  do  this,  the 
craving  for  moral  power  and  visible  guiding,  the 
subtle  pride  of  effective  agency,  lie  some  of  the  chief 
temptations  of  a  schoolmaster's  work."  It  is  hideous 
to  think  that  those  who  are  keenest  over  their  work, 
most  anxious  to  produce  noble  citizens,  may  all  un- 
consciously find  themselves  so  far  tampering  with 
human  souls  as  to  drive  them  to  ruin.  The  natural 
corollary  of  Miss  Dane's  book  would  seem  to  prove 
that  no  teacher  can  afford  to  try  to  win  that  human 
companionship  or  affection  from  the  young,  which 


74  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

is  one  of  the  most  precious  joys  in  life  .  .  .  but  I 
am  overstepping  my  limits  as  a  critic.  The  worst 
of  books  like  Regiment  of  Women  is  that  they  in- 
sidiously lead  us  to  argue  about  their  point  of  view 
and  their  novel  doctrines  rather  than  to  confine  our 
attention  to  their  merits  as  pure  literature. 


VIII 
DOROTHY  RICHARDSON 

THERE  is  no  question  about  Miss  Richardson's 
genius.  As  novel  follows  novel  in  rapid  suc- 
cession, all  dealing  with  the  development  of 
Miriam  Henderson,  we  feel  more  and  more  certainly 
that  the  authoress  has  justified  her  peculiar  method 
of  presentation.  She  has  definitely  cut  loose  from 
tradition  :  she  relies  on  no  incident  to  rouse  our 
interest :  there  is  neither  beginning  nor  end  :  there 
is  no  reason  why  the  series  should  not  be  continued 
to  infinity.  We  are  concerned  entirely  with  the  mind 
of  the  heroine.  Her  thoughts  and  impressions  take 
up  the  whole  of  the  book.  She  doesn't  analyse  :  she 
doesn't  explain  :  she  does  not  narrate  :  she  simply 
unfolds  the  workings  of  a  girl's  mind.  As  a  result 
she  gets  closer  to  actualities  than  any  writer  outside 
the  Russians.  And  yet — ^the  mere  male  is  filled  with 
apprehension  :  Miss  Richardson  seems  to  be  attempt- 
ing the  impossible  :  she  is  trying  to  deny  passion, 
sex,  the  whc4e  domain  of  man.  There  arises  a  suspicion 
that  her  novels  are  the  outcome  of  repressed  sexuality. 
"  There  will  be  books,"  she  writes  in  The  Tunnel, 
"  with  all  that  cut  out — him  and  her — all  that  sort 
of  thing.  The  books  of  the  future  will  be  clear  of 
all  that." 

At  any  rate  in  her  books  there  is  no  "  him  and 
her  "  :  but  most  of  us  find  that  such  ruthless  pruning 
cuts  out  the  greater  part  of  life  :  few  of  us  can  rise  su- 
perior to  the  insistent  call  of  sex.  'Tis  not  only  woman's 

75 


7«  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

whole  existence  :  it  is  rapidly  becoming  man's  too  : 
there  are  cynics,  of  course  (but  Miss  Richardson  is  no 
cynic,  she  takes  an  extravagant  joy  in  life),  who  would 
deny  this  and  hold  themselves  aloof.  But  one  begins 
to  feel  sometimes  that  the  obsession  of  sex  is  not 
so  baneful  as  the  deadly  fear  of  becoming  obsessed 
with  it. 

But  once  remove  from  yoiu"  mind  the  thought  that 
passion  is  necessary  in  a  novel  and  you  will  give 
yourself  up  with  unending  enjoyment  to  Miss  Richard- 
son's views  of  life.  There  is  so  much  that  one  wants 
to  say  about  them  all.  In  order,  however,  to  confine 
oneself  to  the  limits  of  a  chapter  it  is  necessary  to 
concentrate.  I  will,  therefore,  take  only  The  Tunnel, 
a  novel  in  wliich,  as  usual,  nothing  happens.  Miriam 
escapes  (her  whole  life  is  a  series  of  escapes  :  she  is 
a  dreadful  coward)  from  the  Mornington  Road.  We 
are  first  shown  the  effect  on  this  extraordinary  girl  of 
living  free  and  alone  in  lodgings  on  a  pound  a  week. 
"  All  the  real  part  of  your  life  has  a  real  dream 
in  it ;  some  of  the  real  dream  part  of  you  coming 
true.  You  know  in  advance  when  you  are  really 
following  your  life.  Coming  events  cast  light.  It 
is  like  dropping  everything  and  walking  backwards 
to  something  you  know  is  there.  ...  I  am  back  now 
where  I  was  before  I  began  trying  to  do  things  like 
other  people.  .  .  .  Twenty-one  and  only  one  room  to 
hold  the  richly  renewed  consciousness,  and  a  living  to 
earn.  .  .  .  There  was  no  need  to  do  anything  or  think 
about  anything.  .  .  .  No  interruption,  no  one  watch- 
ing or  speculating  or  treating  one  in  some  particular  way 
that  had  to  be  met.  .  .  .  Reading  would  be  real.  .  .  . 
I  should  never  have  gone  to  Mornington  Road  unless 
I  had  been  nearly  mad  with  sorrow.  .  .  .  Following 
advice   is   certain   to   be   wrong.     When   you   don't 


DOROTHY  RICHARDSON  '  T7 

follow  advice  there  may  be  awful  things.  But  they  are 
not  arranged  beforehand.  ...  I  will  never  again  be 
at  the  mercy  of  people,  or  at  all  in  the  places  where 
they  are.  That  means  keeping  free  of  all  groups.  .  .  . 
I  run  away  from  them  because  I  must.  They  kill 
me.  .  .  .  How  frightfully  happy  I  am."  She  finds 
silly  conversation  of  casual  friends  whom  she  can 
pick  up  and  discard  exhilarating,  real,  and  satisfying. 
.  .  .  But — "  What  a  hopeless  thing  a  man's  con- 
sciousness was.  A  man  could  never  be  really  happy 
with  a  woman  unless  he  could  also  despise  her.  Any 
interest  in  generalities,  any  argument  or  criticism  or 
opposition  would  turn  him  into  a  towering  bully.  All 
men  were  like  that  in  some  way.  If  a  woman  opposed 
them  they  went  mad."  It  will  be  noticed  that  Miss 
Richardson  indulges  freely  in  generalisations,  and,  of 
course,  goes  wrong.  It  is  a  pity  that  she  generalises  so 
insistently  upon  man.  She  always  fails  to  understand 
him.  It  is  a  pity,  too,  as  The  Spectator  reviewer  says, 
that  she  should  be  so  anxious  to  be  thought  ultra- 
modern. Her  whisky  and  her  cigarettes  seem  to  be  a 
necessity.  We  envisage  her  as  ridiculously  aping  the 
male  she  so  much  despises.  Then  we  forgive  her  at  once 
because  of  her  wonderful  eye  for  observing  details.  No 
one  has  ever  brought  home  an  atmosphere  so  exactly 
as  she  does.  Take  this  picture  of  a  dentist's  office. 
"  Miriam  swept  from  the  bracket  table  the  litter  of 
used  instruments  and  materials,  disposing  them 
rapidly  on  the  cabinet,  into  the  sterilising  tray,  the 
waste  basket,  and  the  wash-hand  basin,  tore  the 
uppermost  leaf  from  the  head  rest  pad,  and  detached 
the  handpiece  from  the  arm  of  the  motor  drill  while 
the  patient  was  being  shown  upstairs.  Mr  Hancock 
had  cleared  the  spittoon,  set  a  fresh  tumbler,  filled 
the  kettle  and  whisked  the  debris  of  amalgam  and 


78  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

cement  from  the  bracket  table  before  he  began  the 
scrubbing  and  cleansing  of  his  hands,  and  when  the 
patient  came  in  Miriam  was  in  her  corner  reluctantly 
handling  the  instruments,  wet  with  the  solution  that 
crinkled  her  finger-tips  and  made  her  skin  brittle  and 
dry.  Everything  was  in  its  worst  state.  The  busi- 
ness of  drying  and  cleansing,  freeing  fine  points  from 
minute  closely  adhering  fragments,  polishing  instru- 
ments on  the  leather  pad,  repolishing  them  with  the 
leather,  scraping  the  many  little  burs  with  the  fine 
wire  brush,  scraping  the  clamps,  clearing  the  obsti- 
nate amalgam  from  slab  and  spatula,  brought  across 
her  the  ever-recurring  circle  .  .  .  the  exasperating 
tediousness  of  holding  herself  to  the  long  series  of 
tiny  careful  attention-demanding  movements  .  .  . 
the  punctual  emergence  when  the  end  was  in  sight 
of  the  hovering  reflection,  nagging  and  questioning, 
that  another  set  of  things  was  already  getting  ready 
for  another  cleansing  process.  .  .  .  The  evolution 
of  dentistry  was  wonderful,  but  the  more  perfect  it 
became  the  more  and  more  of  this  sort  of  thing  there 
would  be  .  .  .  could  God  approve  of  this  kind  of 
thing  .  .  .  was  it  right  to  spend  life  cleaning  instru- 
ments ...  all  work  has  drudgery  .  .  .  blessed  be 
drudgery,  but  that  was  housekeeping,  not  some  one 
else's  drudgery  .  .  .  and  no  one  knew  what  it  cost. 
...  It  was  keeping  to  that  all  day  and  every  day, 
choosing  the  most  difficult,  tiresome  way  in  everything 
that  kept  that  radiance  about  Mr  Hancock  when  he 
was  quietly  at  work.  ...  I  mustn't  stay  here  think- 
ing these  thoughts  .  .  .  it's  that  evil  thing  in  me, 
always  thinking  thoughts,  nothing  getting  done — 
going  through  life  like — a  stuck  pig.  If  I  went 
straight  on  things  would  come  like  that  just  the  same 
in  flashes  .  .  .  bang,  bang,  in  your  heart,  everything 


DOROTHY  RICHARDSON  79 

breaking  into  light  just  in  front  of  you,  flowers  and 
light  stretching  out.  Then  you  shut  it  down,  letting 
it  go  through  you  with  a  leap  that  carries  you  to  the 
moon — ^the  sun,  and  makes  you  bump  with  life  like 
the  little  boy  bursting  out  of  his  too-small  clothes, 
and  go  on  choking  with  song  to  do  the  next  thing 
deftly.  ...  I  can't  be  easy  till  I've  said  it  in  my 
mind,  and  I'm  sad  till  I've  said  it  somehow  .  .  .  and 
sadder  when  I  have  said  it.  But  nothing  gets  done. 
I  must  stop  thinking  from  now  and  be  fearfully 
efficient." 

But  she  doesn't :  she  thinks  arloud  all  through  the 
book.  Some  people,  most,  I  fear,  will  be  put  off  by 
countless  pages  like  that  which  I  have  quoted.  But 
it  is  not  for  the  story,  but  for  the  impression  which 
life  makes  on  the  mind  of  a  young  girl  that  one  reads 
this  book.  To  put  her  novel  down  and  go  out  into 
the  street  or  on  to  the  common  is  necessary  very 
frequently  in  order  to  keep  in  touch  with  that  life 
which  most  of  us  value  very  highly  because  we  have 
compromised  at  an  early  age  and  allowed  ourselves 
to  descend  into  that  arena  to  fight,  but  it  is  equally 
refreshing  to  return  to  the  rarefied  atmosphere  of  The 
Tunnel  and  watch  Miriam's  fugitive  and  cloistered 
virtue  remaining  aloof  from  the  dust  and  heat.  For 
one  thing,  by  so  doing  she  has  kept  her  virgin  soul 
intact  and  is  able  to  say  things  about  music,  painting, 
and  literature  which  we  recognise  to  be  true  and  fine 
and  totally  beyond  our  power  of  expression. 

"  Somebody  had  said  that  all  good  art,  all  great 
art,  had  a  sensuous  element  ...  it  was  dreadful, 
but  probably  true.  Mr  Hancock  was  '  put  off '  by 
sensuousness,  by  anybody  taking  a  delight  in  the  sun 
on  rice-fields  and  the  gay  colours  of  Japan  .  .  . 
perhaps  one  ought  to  be  '  put  off '  by  Hearn.  .  .  ." 


80  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

Or  this  about  reading :    "  There  ought  to  be  clear 
enunciation.     Not    expression — ^that    was    Hke   com- 
menting as  you  read  ;  getting  at  the  person  you  were 
reading  to  .  .  .  reading  with  expression  really  hadn't 
any  expression."     Or  this  about  Zola  :    "  Wandering 
back  to  her  room  she  repeated  the  phrases  in  her 
mind  in  French :   they  seemed  to  clear  up  and  take 
shelter — somehow  they   were   terse   and   acceptable, 
and  they  were  secret  and  secure — ^but  English  people 
ought  not  to  read  them  in  English.     It  was  outrage- 
ous.    Englishmen,  .  .  .  the  Frenchman  had  written 
them  simply  .  .  .  French  logic  .  .  .  Englishmen  were 
shy  and  suggestive  about  these  things — either  that 
or  breezy  ...  *  filth,'  which  was  almost  worse."     Or 
this  about  Eden  Phillpotts :    "  There  was  something 
about  the  name  :  soft  and  numb,  with  a  slight  chatter 
and  hiss  at  the  end,  a  rainstorm,  the  atmosphere  of 
Devonshire  and  the  mill-wheel."     Even  her  friends 
comment  on   Miriam's  "  extraordinarily  sharp  sense 
of    right   and  wrong."     Everybody   else   seems    to 
be  blunting  her  senses  all    the  time  by   "  going  in 
amongst  the  crowd  "  (a  Hendersonism  for  "  married  "), 
or  mixing  "  naturally  "  with  others.     I  say   "  her  " 
advisedly.     Men's  senses  in  Miriam's  eyes  are  already 
blunted  beyond  all  hope  of  repair.     Miss  Richardson 
seems  to  me  to  be  most  paradoxical :    she  calls  our 
existence  (yours,  mine),  the  sheltered  life  ;    her  idea 
of  complete  emancipation  is  to  be  able  "  to  turn  up 
on     Sunday  morning  in   your   knickers   with    your 
hair    down "    far    from    "  sheltered "    women    and 
"  complacent  abominable  "  men.      Miss  Richardson 
has  got  a  bee  in  her  bonnet  about  us  as  a  sex. 
She  can't  use  the  word  "  man  "  without  losing  her 
temper.     She  is  more  reasonable  on  the  things  of  the 
mind. 


DOROTHY  RICHARDSON  81 

"  You  ought  not  to  think  in  words — I  mean — you 
can  think  in  your  brain  by  imagining  yourself  going 
on  and  on  through  it,  endless  space." 

"  You  can't  grasp  space  with  your  mind." 
"  You  don't  GRASP  it,  you  go  through  it.  .  .  . 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  eternal  punishment.  It 
makes  God  a  failure  and  a  fool.  It's  a  man's  idea. 
Sitting  on  a  throne  judging  everybody  and  passing 
sentence  is  a  thing  a  man  would  do." 
Again,  on  the  eternal  subject  of  "  Man  "  : 
"  Old  men  seemed  to  have  some  sort  of  understand- 
ing of  things.  If  only  they  would  talk  with  the  same 
conviction  about  other  things  as  there  was  in  their 
tone  when  they  said  those  personal  things  (my  beauty, 
my  sweet,  you  sweet  girl,  etc.).  But  the  things  they 
said  were  worldly  :  generalisations,  like  the  things 
one  read  in  books  that  tired  you  out  with  trying  to 
find  the  answer,  and  made  books  so  awful — ^things 
that  might  look  true  about  everybody  at  some  time 
or  other,  and  were  not  really  true  about  anybody — 
when  you  knew  them.  All  the  things  the  old  men 
said  about  life  and  themselves  and  other  people  were 
sad  :  '  Make  the  best  of  your  youth,  my  dear,  before 
it  flies.'  If  it  all  ended  in  sadness  and  envy  of  youth, 
life  was  simply  a  silly  trick.  Life  could  not  be  a 
silly  trick.  That  is  the  simple  truth  ...  a  certainty. 
Whatever  happens,  whatever  things  look  like,  life  is 
not  a  trick."  Life  is  not  a  trick  to  Miriam  simply 
because  she  is  always  ecstatically  happy.  "  To  toss 
all  the  joys  and  happiness  away  and  know  that  you 
are  happy  and  free  without  anything."  "  Why  do 
lovely  things  and  people  go  on  happening  ?  "  Hark- 
ing back  to  the  subject  of  words  :  "  Whether  you 
agree  or  not,  language  is  the  only  way  of  expressing 
anything,  and  it  dims  everything.     So  the  Bible  is 

F 


82  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

not  true  :  it  is  a  culture.  Religion  is  wrong  in  making 
word-dogmas  out  of  it.  Christ  was  something.  But 
Christianity,  which  calls  Him  divine  and  so  on,  is 
false.  It  clings  to  words  which  get  more  and  more 
wrong.  .  .  .  Then  there's  nothing  to  be  afraid  of 
and  nothing  to  be  quite  sure  of  rejoicing  about.  The 
Christians  are  irritating  and  frightened.  The  man 
with  side- whiskers  [Huxley,  a  special  object  of 
Miriam's  hatred]  understands  something.     But." 

Her  defence  of  women  talking  shamelessly  at 
concerts  and  chattering  on  a  mountain-top  in  the 
presence  of  a  magnificent  panorama  would  have 
rejoiced  the  heart  of  Rupert  Brooke  :  "  Then  men 
mustn't  treat  them  as  works  of  art :  it  was  perfectly 
reasonable  that  the  women  who  got  that  sort  of 
admiration  from  men  should  assert,  themselves  in  the 
presence  of  other  works  of  art."  One  of  the  frighten- 
ing things  about  Miss  Richardson's  genius  is  the  way 
that  she  sends  her  thoughts  out  in  all  sorts  of  queer 
directions.  "  Miriam  figured  them  in  a  flash  coming 
down  the  road  to  the  house  :  their  young  men's  talk 
and  arguments,  their  certainty  of  rightness  and  com- 
pleteness." Or  this  of  music  :  "  The  player's  air  of 
superiority  to  other  music  was  insufferable  :  her  way 
of  playing  out  bar  by  bar  of  the  rain  on  the  roof,  as 
if  she  were  giving  a  lesson,  was  a  piece  of  intellectual 
snobbery.  Alma's  horrible  holding  back  of  the  third 
note  for  emphasis  where  there  was  no  emphasis  .  .  . 
it  was  like  .  .  .  finding  a  wart  at  the  end  of  a  fine 
tendril.  Why  are  the  English  so  awful  about  music  ? 
They  are  poets.  English  people  ought  never  to  play, 
only  to  listen  to  music.  They  are  not  innocent  enough 
to  play.  They  cannot  forget  themselves."  Or  this 
on  Shakespeare  : 

"  Women  always  despise  men  under  the  influence 


DOROTHY  RICHARDSON  88 

of  passion  or  fatigue  :  did  a  man  ever  speak  in  a 
natural  voice — ^neither  blushing,  nor  displaying  his 
cleverness,  nor  being  simply  a  lustful  slave  ?  To 
pretend  one  did  not  see  through  a  man's  voice  would 
be  treachery.  Harshness  must  go — perhaps  that  was 
what  Christ  meant.  .  .  .  The  knowledge  of  woman 
is  larger,  bigger,  deeper,  less  wordy  and  clever  than 
that  of  men.  Men  have  no  real  knowledge,  but  of 
things  ;  a  sort  of  superiority  they  get  by  being  free 
to  be  out  in  the  world  amongst  things  ;  they  do  not 
understand  people,  '  a  civilisation  can  never  rise  above 
the  level  of  its  women.'  Perhaps  if  women  became 
lawyers  they  would  change  things.  Women  do  not 
respect  law.  Portia  ?  She  had  been  invented  by  a 
man.  There  was  no  reality  in  any  of  Shakespeare's 
women.  They  please  men  because  they  show  women 
as  men  see  them.  Shakespeare's  plays  are  '  universal ' 
because  they  are  about  the  things  that  everybody 
knows  and  hands  about,  and  they  do  not  trouble 
anybody.     They  make  every  one  feel  wise." 

To  revert  to  men  for  the  nth  time  :  "In  speech  with 
a  man  a  woman  is  at  a  disadvantage,  because  they 
speak  different  languages.  She  may  understand  his. 
Hers  he  will  never  speak  nor  understand.  In  pity, 
or  from  other  motives,  she  must  therefore,  stammer- 
ingly,  speak  his.  That's  the  truth  about  life.  Men 
and  women  never  meet.  Inside  the  life-relationship 
you  can  see  them  being  strangers  and  hostile  :  one 
or  the  other,  or  both,  completely  alone."  A  senti- 
ment immediately  followed  by  her  usual  song  and 
caper  of  well-being.  "  I  am  frantically,  frantically 
happy,"  presumably  because  there  are  no  males  at 
hand  to  bother.  But  this  mood  doesn't  last :  in  the 
next  chapter  she  is  at  it  again,  hell-for-leather,  attack- 
ing the  man-made  world. 


84  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

"  If  one  could  only  burn  all  the  volumes  ;  stop  the 
publication  of  them.  But  it  was  all  books,  all  the 
literature  in  the  world,  right  back  to  Juvenal  .  .  . 
whatever  happened,  if  it  could  all  be  avenged  by 
somebody  in  some  way,  there  was  all  that  .  .  .  the 
classics,  the  finest  literature — '  unsurpassed.'  Educa- 
tion would  always  mean  coming  into  contact  with 
all  that.  .  .  .  There  was  no  getting  away  from  the 
scientific  facts  .  .  .  inferior ;  mentally,  morally,  in- 
tellectually and  physically  .  .  .  her  development 
arrested  in  the  interest  of  her  special  functions  .  .  . 
reverting  later  towards  the  male  type  .  .  .  old  women 
with  deep  voices  and  hair  on  their  faces.  .  .  .  Woman 
is  undeveloped  man  :  if  one  could  die  of  the  loathsome 
visions  ...  if  by  one  thought  all  the  men  in  the  world 
could  be  stopped,  shaken,  and  slapped.  There  musty 
somewhere,  be  some  power  that  could  avenge  it  all. 
...  It  will  go  on  as  long  as  women  are  stupid  enough 
to  go  on  bringing  men  into  the  world.  .  .  .  There 
is  no  pardon  possible  for  man.  The  only  answer  to 
them  is  suicide  ;  all  women  ought  to  agree  to  commit 
suicide.  .  .  .  There  was  nothing  to  turn  to.  Books 
were  poisoned.  Art.  All  the  achievements  of  men 
were  poisoned  at  the  root.  .  .  .  Religion  was  the  only 
hope.  .  .  .  But  no  future  life  could  heal  the  degrada- 
tion of  having  been  a  woman.  .  .  .  Christ  was  a 
man.  If  it  was  true  that  He  was  God  taking  on 
humanity — ^He  took  on  male  humanity.  .  .  .  Life  is 
poisoned,  for  women,  at  the  very  source."  It  becomes 
after  scores  of  such  pages  rather  pathetic  :  it  is 
obviously  her  great  obsession.  It  is  pleasanter  to 
leave  this  topic  and  turn  again  to  her  general  style. 
The  Spectator  critic,  confessedly  an  elderly  male,  finds 
an  affinity  with  jazz-music  and  other  modern  diablerie 
in  such  thought-waves  as  this  :    "  Last  night's  soapy 


DOROTHY  RICHARDSON  86 

water  poured  away  and  the  fresh  poured  out  ready 
standing  there  all  night,  everything  ready.  ...  I 
must  not  forget  the  extra  piece  of  string  .  .  .  Je-ru- 
sa-lem  the  gol-den,  with-milk-and-hun-ney-blest  .  .  . 
sh,  not  so  much  noise  .  .  .  beneath  thy  con,  tem, 
pla,  tion,  sink,  heart,  and,  voice,  o,  ppressed. 

I  know  not,  oh,  I,  know,  not. 

Sh  .  .  .  sh  .  .  .  hark,  hark,  my  soul  angelic  songs 
are  swelling  O'er  earth's  green  fields,  and  ocean's 
wave-beat  shore  .  .  .  damn — blast,  where  are  my 
bally  knickers  ? — Sing  us  sweet  fragments  of  the  songs 
above. 

"  The  green  world  everywhere,  inside  and  out  .  .  . 
all  along  the  dim  staircase,  waiting  in  the  dim  cold 
kitchen.  No  blind,  brighter.  Cool  grey  light,  a 
misty,  windless  morning.     Shut  the  door. 

They  STAND  those  HALLS  o/ZI-ON 
ALL  JUBILANT  with  SONG." 

I,  on  the  other  hand,  can  follow  every  note  of  this  : 
it  is  all  exactly  right,  one's  mind  does  work  just  in 
this  strange,  jerky,  inconsequent  sort  of  way.  This 
is  the  work  of  an  artist  who  not  only  thinks,  but 
remembers  what  she  thinks.  The  question,  is  if  one 
discards  incident,  which  thoughts  are  revelant  and 
which  put  in  because  they  happen  to  recur  to  the 
memory  ?  For,  after  all,  art  is  selection,  not  entirely 
observation.  We  are  to  see  the  development  of  the 
girl's  mind.  It  is  open  to  question  whether  this 
method  of  presentation  always  succeeds  in  showing 
us  this  development.  We  forgive  her  her  frequent 
use  of  that  odious  word  "  serviette  "  ;  we  forgive  her 
her  love  of  reproducing  completely  idiotic  conversa- 
tion, it  is  harder  to  forgive  her  diseased  attitude  to 


86  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

the  male  sex,  hardest  of  all  to  forgive  her  for  running 
away  from  life  .  .  .  and  yet  at  the  end  of  all,  she 
does  interest  us.  The  Tunnel  is  no  easy  book  to  read. 
Quite  nine-tenths  of  those  who  take  it  up  will  not 
have  the  patience  to  work  out  the  rich  ore  contained 
in  it,  for  there  is  rich  ore,  as  I  have  tried  to  show, 
and  concentration  is  certainly  needed  if  we  are  to 
profit  by  the  experience  of  ploughing  through  it. 

May  Sinclair  sees  in  Miss  Richardson's  novels  an 
art  and  method  and  form  carried  to  punctilious  per- 
fection. There  is,  it  is  true,  no  drama,  no  situation, 
no  set  scene.  Nothing  happens.  It  is  just  life  going 
on  and  on.  In  identifying  herself  with  this  life,  Miss 
Richardson,  in  May  Sinclair's  eyes,  gets  closer  to  reality 
than  any  other  novelist.  No  other  writers  use  their 
senses  so  purely  or  so  intensely.  This  intensity  is 
the  effect  of  an  extreme  concentration  on  the  thing 
seen  or  felt.  So  her  novels  are  of  an  extraordinary 
compression,  and  of  an  extenuation  more  extraordinary 
still.  One  does  not  differ  from  May  Sinclair  lightly  : 
what  she  says,  she  means  .  .  .  and  it  is  obvious  that 
she  regards  Dorothy  Richardson  as  a  profoimdly 
significant  phenomenon.  I  would  not  deny  that,  but 
I  withhold  complete  adoration  on  grounds  that  I 
have  already  tried  to  make  plain. 


PART  II 
POETRY  AND  POETS 


I 

INTRODUCTORY 

MR  G.  S.  STREET  has  some  shrewd  comments 
to  make  on  the  enormous  output  of  verse 
during  the  last  few  years.  It  was  obvious,  of 
course,  that  all  the  young  poets  were  in  the  Army; 
to  be  a  poet  at  all  connoted  that  one  was  of  military 
age,  as  one  commonly  writes  verse  in  the  first  flush 
of  youth  rather  than  in  a  ripe  old  age  :  it  is  equally 
obvious  that  in  moments  of  great  stress  or  emotion 
men  do  write  poetry,  or  at  any  rate  formulate  it 
so  that  it  may  be  recollected  in  tranquillity,  but 
most  war  poetry  is  remarkable  for  its  reticence  on 
the  subject  of  the  deeper  emotions ;  the  moods 
evoked  are  those  called  into  being  by  weariness, 
comradeship,  country  scenes,  and  so  on.  Now  Mr 
Street's  theory  is  that  these  thousands  of  verses  were 
hammered  out  in  the  mind  at  a  time  when  paper 
and  pen  were  not  available,  on  the  march,  in  the 
trench,  on  duty  of  some  sort.  Thoughts  would  flit 
through  the  minds  of  these  men,  pleasant  enough  or 
vivid  enough  to  make  them  want  to  write  them  down  : 
as  this  was  impossible  they  had  to  commit  them  to 
memory.  What  greater  aid  to  memory  than  rhythm 
or  rhyme  ?  This  seems  to  me  a  most  likely  solution. 
The  planning  of  a  sonnet  in  his  head,  with  its  intricate 
rhyme-scheme  would  certainly  enable  a  man  to  retain 
an  impression,  and  the  search  for  the  best  word  and 
the  necessary  rhymes  would  certainly  heighten  the 

effect  of  the  thought  and  make  it  of  infinitely  greater 

89 


90  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WTIITERS 

value  than  if  it  had  been  hastily  written  down  in 
loose  prose. 

This  theory  would  explain  the  absence  of  vers  litre 
among  the  soldier-poets,  perhaps  the  most  popular 
form  of  writing  poetry  before  the  war. 

Ford  Madox  Hueffer  certainly  still  indulges  in  it, 
but  it  is  significant  that  he  takes  special  pains  in  his 
preface  to  defend  his  use  of  it.  In  1913  it  almost 
needed  a  defence  if  one  dared  to  rhyme  or  scan. 
Now  Hueffer  even  makes  his  vers  litre  rhyme !  The 
war  has  driven  the  poet  back  from  fanciful  experi- 
ment to  tradition  :  the  long,  lonely  hours  have  led 
to  silent  thought,  but  not  silent  writing  :  the  silent 
thought  has  become  crystalhsed  in  the  old  classical 
form,  and  we  have  poetry  in  the  true  succession  of 
the  Philip  Sidneys  and  the  Lovelaces  of  old. 

But  this  is,  after  all,  but  a  slight  matter.  The  war 
has  done  more  than  drive  the  vers  litrist  back  to 
saner  channels  in  which  to  float  his  argosy.  As 
Arthur  Waugh  has  well  pointed  out,  the  yoimger 
school  of  poets,  headed  by  Rupert  Brooke,  stood  for 
individualism  against  the  tyranny  of  convention, 
honestly  striving  to  present  life  as  they  saw  it ;  they 
failed  through  an  incurable  spirit  of  selfishness.  In- 
curable, that  is,  but  for  the  war.  The  poet  back  from 
the  trenches  still  retains  his  individuality,  but  it  has 
ceased  to  be  introspective  :  all  our  sympathies  have 
become  extraordinarily  widened  :  no  longer  do  we 
speak  glibly  as  the  Victorians  did  of  the  ennobling 
glories  of  war  :  we  have  discovered  it  to  be  an  unspeak- 
able horror,  paralysing  the  very  soul :  it  becomes  the 
mission  of  a  Sassoon  "  to  strip  the  tinsel  from  Bellona's 
robes "  and  reveal  to  us  the  stark  and  chattering 
skeleton  beneath.  By  a  quaint  paradox  individualism 
has  expanded  into  a  passion  for  companionship. 


INTRODUCTORY  91 

Think  of  the  interchange  of  letters  in  verse  between 
Graves,  Sassoon,  and  Nichols.  Multiply  that  a  million- 
fold  .  .  .  read  any  soldier's  poetry :  his  work  is  brimful 
of  warmth  and  tenderness  for  others.  The  most  self- 
centred  generation  in  history  has  been  transformed 
into  the  most  sympathetic  and  humane. 

To  go  back  a  little.  It  is  not  my  purpose  to  take 
in  detail  any  of  those  "  Georgians  "  who  were  famous 
before  the  war  ;  it  is  necessary,  therefore,  for  the 
purposes  of  continuity  to  sum  up  their  achievement. 
They  scorned  the  amorous  pessimism  of  the  decadent 
nineties  :  they  refused  to  be  obsessed  by  the  passions  : 
they  would  not  allow  themselves  to  get  drunk  on 
the  superb  melodies  of  Swinburne  :  they  prided  them- 
selves on  their  sincerity  and  fought  under  the  banner 
of  realism.  Now  realism  has  been  made  to  connote 
as  many  different  meanings  as  that  overworked  word 
romantic. 

To  the  early  Georgians  it  meant  stark  nakedness, 
frank  brutality.  Luckily  it  extended  its  scope  to 
include  the  mysticism  of  Evelyn  Underbill,  the  para- 
doxical balladry  of  Chesterton,  the  all-embracing 
sympathy  of  Ralph  Hodgson,  and  the  quaint  humour 
of  Harold  Monro  (who  endows  apparently  inanimate 
objects  with  reason  and  life),  as  well  as  the  Billingsgate 
colloquialism  of  Masefield's  long  narrative  poems. 
In  a  word,  these  poets  refused  to  specialise  :  they  all 
overstepped  the  prescribed  boundaries,  and  poetry 
became  infinitely  more  human,  and  consequently 
humorous.  Lascelles  Abercrombie  relies  on  intellec- 
tuality ;  De  la  Mare  on  a  most  seductive  wizardry ; 
D.  H.  Lawrence,  almost  a  fanatic  on  one  subject, 
and  that  thoroughly  unpleasant,  owing  to  the  unruly 
turbulence  of  his  surcharged  emotions,  relies  entirely 
on  sex.     The  introduction  of  the  dramatic  element,  at 


92  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

once  bizarre,  awkward,  and  hyper-intellectual,  owes 
much  to  Donne,  who,  it  is  significant  to  add,  has  come 
into  his  own  after  three  hundred  years'  neglect. 

"  Half  an  hour's  roaming  about  a  street  or  village 
or  railway  station  shows  so  much  beauty  that  it's 
impossible  to  be  anything  but  wild  with  suppressed 
exhilaration.  And  it's  not  only  beauty  and  beautiful 
things.  In  a  flicker  of  sunlight  on  a  blank  wall,  or 
a  reach  of  muddy  pavement,  or  smoke  from  an  engine 
at  night,  there's  a  sudden  significance  and  importance 
and  inspiration  that  makes  the  breath  stop  with  a 
gulp  of  certainty  and  happiness.  ...  I  suppose  my 
occupation  is  being  in  love  with  the  universe — or 
(for  it's  an  important  difference)  with  certain  spots 
and  moments  and  points  of  it." 

That  is  the  very  spirit  of  Donne  reincarnated  in 
Brooke  :  the  Brooke  of  Grantchester^  and  Heaven. 
That  is  what  enabled  him  to  say  with  perfect  sincerity, 
"  There  is  nothing  in  the  world  like  friendship.  There 
is  no  man  who  has  had  such  friends  as  I,  so  many, 
so  fine,  so  various,  so  multiform,  so  prone  to  laughter, 
so  strong  in  affection,  and  so  permanent,  so  trust- 
worthy, so  courteous,  so  stem  with  vices  and  so  blind 
to  faults  or  folly,  so  apt  to  make  jokes  and  to  under- 
stand them." 

At  times  in  his  letters  and  his  poems  he  reminds 
us  of  Compton  Mackenzie's  rather  hard  but  brilliant 
heroine,  Sylvia  Scarlett :  then  the  beloved  poet  of 
Grantchester  emerges  once  more,  the  lover  of  England. 

"  Plymouth — ^was  there  ever  so  sweet  and  droll  a 
sound  ?  Drake's  Plymouth,  English  Western  Ply- 
mouth, city  where  men  speak  softly,  and  things  are 
sold  for  sWllings,  not  for  dollars  ;  and  there  is  love 
and  beauty  and  old  houses  .  .  .  and  beyond  which 
are  little  fields,  very  green,  bounded  by  small  piled 


INTRODUCTORY  98 

walls  of  stone  :  and  behind  them  the  brown  and 
black,  splintered,  haunted  moor.  By  that  the  train 
shall  go  up  :  by  Dartmouth,  where  my  brother  was — 
I  will  make  a  litany ;  by  Torquay,  where  Verrall 
stayed ;  and  by  Paignton,  where  I  have  walked  in 
the  rain  :  past  Ilsington,  where  John  Ford  was  bom, 
and  Appledore,  in  the  inn  of  which  I  wrote  a  poem 
against  a  commercial  traveller  ;  by  Dawlish,  of  which 
John  Keats  sang  ;  within  sight  of  Widdicombe,  where 
old  Uncle  Tom  Cobley  rode  a  mare  ;  not  a  dozen 
miles  from  John  Galsworthy  at  Manaton ;  within 
sight  almost  of  that  hill  at  Drewsteignton,  on  which 
I  lay  out  all  one  September  night,  crying  ..." 

"  I've  never  been  quite  so  happy  in  my  life,"  he 
wrote  when  he  learnt  that  he  was  to  go  out  to  the 
Dardanelles,  "  not  quite  so  pervasively  happy  :  I 
suddenly  realise  that  the  ambition  of  my  life  has 
been  to  go  on  a  military  expedition  against  Constanti- 
nople." The  immense  popularity  of  Brooke  may 
owe  much  to  his  personal  beauty,  his  intellect,  his 
deft  humour,  the  tragedy  of  his  death,  or  a  hundred 
causes,  but  most  of  all  he  will  be  remembered  and 
loved  for  his  unfailing  zest  for  life,  his  universal,  all- 
embracing  love. 

This  one  last  gift  I  give :  that  after  men 

Shall  know,  and  later  lovers,  far-removed, 

Praise  you,  "  All  these  were  lovely  " ;  say,  "  He  loved." 

W.  H.  Davies  is  another  hi  those  who  come  outside 
the  scope  of  my  paper  except  as  an  influence.  It  is 
easy  to  poke  fun,  as  J.  C.  Squire  does,  at  the  childish 
simplicity  of  his  theme  :  like  Brooke  he  is  carried 
off  his  feet  by  the  most  ordinary  objects  of  everyday 
life.  He  is  content  to  feel  and  to  translate  his  rapture 
on  to  paper  without  moralising  : 


94  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

But  riddles  are  not  made  for  me, 
My  joy's  in  beauty,  not  its  cause  : 
Then  give  me  but  the  open  skies, 
And  birds  that  sing  in  a  green  wood 
That's  snowbound  by  anemones. 

He  is  content  to  sit  still  in  the  hedgerows  and  drink 
in  the  beauties  of  his  surroundings  and  pour  out  his 
thanksgiving  in  simple  melodies  : 

Sing  for  the  sun  your  lyric,  lark. 
Of  twice  ten  thousand  notes  : 
Sing  for  the  moon,  you  nightingales. 
Whose  light  shall  kiss  your  throats  ; 
Sing,  sparrows,  for  the  soft,  warm  rain, 
To  wet  your  feathers  through  : 
And,  when  a  rainbow's  in  the  sky. 
Sing  you,  cuckoo  :   "  cuckoo." 

It  would  be  unfair,  however,  to  pass  on  to  my 
choice  of  individuals  without  reflecting  briefly  on  such 
work  in  Edward  Marsh's  Georgian  Poetry,  1916-1917, 
as  is  worthy  of  special  mention.  The  previous 
volumes  I  have  dealt  with  elsewhere.^ 

Following  upon  the  khaki-bound  volume  of  1911- 
1912  and  the  blue  of  1913-1915,  we  have  now  the 
emerald  green  of  1916-1917  to  complete  a  series  of 
poetry  as  interesting  as  any  in  our  shelves.  Nine  out 
of  the  eighteen  poets  represented  here  are  new ; 
consequently  the  work  of  the  "  older  inhabitants  "  is 
restricted  in  order  to  make 'way  for  a  sufficient  number 
of  poems  from  the  unknown  writers. 

I  propose  to  follow  Mr  Marsh's  own  order  of 
reversing  the  alphabetical  order  in  this  instance,  for 
the  purpose  of  bringing  the  new  blood  to  the  fore. 

First  on  the  list  comes  Mr  W.  J.  Turner. 

^  From  Shakespeare  to  0.  Henry,  Grant  Richards. 


INTRODUCTORY  95 

In  his  opening  poem,  Romance,  he  dwells  upon  the 
effect  of  exotic  names  on  the  boy-mind  : 

When  I  was  but  thirteen  or  so, 

I  went  into  a  golden  land  ; 
Chimborazo,  Cotopaxi, 

Took  me  by  the  hand. 

The  death  of  father  and    brother,  the   presence    of 
masters  and  boys  at  school,  affected  him  but  dimly  : 

The  houses,  people,  traffic  seemed 

Thin  fading  dreams  by  day  ; 
Chimborazo,  Cotopaxi, 

They  had  stolen  my  soul  away  ! 

In  Ecstasy  he  essays  a  subject  which  is  too  hard 
for  him.  In  formless  metre,  which  does  not  even 
rhyme,  he  tries  to  depict  the  effect  produced  upon 
his  mind  after  seeing  "  a  frieze  on  whitest  marble 
drawn  of  boys  who  sought  for  shells  along  the  shore." 
The  effect  was  that 

The  wind  came  and  purified  my  limbs, 
And  the  stars  came  and  set  within  my  eyes. 
And  snowy  clouds  rested  upon  my  shoulders. 
And  the  blue  sky  shimmered  deep  within  me. 
And  I  sang  like  a  carven  pipe  of  music. 

It  is  all  stiff  and  wooden,  never  galvanised  into  the 
true  stuff  of  poetry. 

I  like  him  better  when  he  returns  to  the  magic 
of  place-names,  as  he  does  in  The  Hunter  : 

I  met  thee  first  long,  long  ago. 
Turning  a  printed  page,  and  I 
Stared  at  a  world  I  did  not  know, 
And  felt  my  blood  like  fire  flow, 
At  that  strange  name  of  Yucatan. 

After  finishing  the  twelve  pages  allotted  to  him 


96  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

in  this  anthology  I  come  to  the  conclusion  that  I 
prefer  Mr  Turner  as  a  dramatic  critic  in  Land  and 
Water.  He  has  colour,  and,  when  he  wishes  it,  music, 
but  he  is  careless  of  prosody. 

It  is  delightful  to  turn  over  and  find  that  James 
Stephens  has  returned  from  his  vague  twitterings  to 
give  us  again  songs  at  once  eager,  musical,  and 
birdlike.  He  has  never  been  in  happier  vein  than 
in  Fifteen  Acres  : 

I  stoop  and  swoop 

On  the  air,  or  loop 
Through  the  trees,  and  then  go  soaring,  O  : 

To  group  vnth  a  troop 

On  the  gusty  poop 
While  the  wind  behind  is  roaring,  O  : 

I  skim  and  swim 

By  a  cloud's  red  rim 
And  up  to  the  azure  flooring,  O  : 

And  my  wide  wings  drip 

As  I  slip,  slip,  slip 
Down  through  the  raindrops. 

Back  where  Peg 

Broods  in  the  nest 

On  the  little  white  egg. 
So  early  in  the  morning,  O. 

The  touch,  too,  in  Check,  about  night  creeping  on 
the  ground  : 

I  heard  the  rustle  of  her  shawl 

As  she  threw  blackness  everywhere, 

Upon  the  sky  and  groimd  and  air, 

is  wholly  delightful  and  unmistakably  his  own.  But 
the  ingenuous  nawetS  of  an  innocent  can  be  overdone, 
and  no  longer  can  we  find  charm  in  such  phrases  as 
"  Her  face  was  awful  white  "  or  "It  flew  down  all 


INTRODUCTORY  97 

crumply  and  waggled  such  a  lot,"  even  from  children, 
in  poetry. 

It  is  delightful  to  find  that  Harold  Monro  has 
really  come  into  his  own  at  last,  and  in  the  extracts 
from  Strange  Meetings  given  here  we  get  a  very  fair 
idea  of  that  philosophy  for  which  we  used  to  search 
in  vain  in  his  work.  It  is  plain  enough  now  to  see 
that  he  is  trying  to  link  up  the  organic  with  the 
inorganic  worlds  : 

Since  man  has  been  articulate  .  .  . 
He  has  not  understood  the  little  cries  .  .  . 
Has  failed  to  hear  the  sympathetic  call 
Of  crockery  and  cutlery  .  .  .  the  stool 
He  sat  on,  or  the  door  he  entered  through  : 
He  has  not  thanked  them,  overbearing  fool ! 

He  then  proceeds  happily  to  illustrate  the  various 
means  which  our  inanimate  friends  employ  to  call 
attention  to  our  neglect  of  them  : 

The  rafters  creak  :  an  empty  cupboard  door 
Swings  open  ;  now  a  wild  plank  of  the  floor 
Breaks  from  its  joist  and  leaps  behind  my  foot. 

The  bed  sighs,  the  kettle  puffs  tentacles  of  breath, 
the  copper  basin  tumbles  from  the  shelf,  the  gas 
flares  and  frets  irascibly,  "  reminding  me  I  ought  to 
go  to  bed." 

The  putty  cracks  against  the  window-pane, 
A  piece  of  paper  in  the  basket  shoves 
Another  piece,  and  toward  the  bottom  moves. 

Pencils  break  their  points  .  .  . : 

"  There  is  not  much  dissimilarity  "  (he  concludes) : 


98  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

Not  much  to  choose,  I  know  it  well,  in  fine. 

Between  the  purposes  of  you  and  me. 

And  your  eventual  Rubbish  Heap  and  mine. 

Week-End  is  a  delightful  sonnet  series,  containing 
ten  stanzas  dwelling  on  the  same  theme  : 

There  you  are  waiting,  little  friendly  house  .  .  . 
Your  homely  floor  is  creaking  for  our  tread  .  .  . 
The  key  will  stammer,  and  the  door  reply. 
The  hall  wake,  yawn,  and  smile  .  .  . 
There's  lovely  conversation  in  this  house  : 
Words  become  princes  that  were  slaves  before. 

The  "  week-enders  "  become  so  happy,  wandering  and 
listening  to  the  sounds  of  the  friendly  countryside,  that 
when  the  time  comes  for  them  to  return  to  work,  for 
one  instant  they  think  of  shirking  : 

Week-end  is  very  well  on  Saturday  \ 

On  Monday  it's  a  different  affair — 

A  little  episode,  a  trivial  stay 

In  some  oblivious  spot  somehow,  somewhere. 

They  find  it  very  hard  to  tear  themselves  away  from 
their  Paradise : 

The  lonely  farm  is  wondering  that  we 

Can  leave.    How  every  window  seems  to  stare  ! 

We  leave  the  happy-imhappy  pair 

Reading  the  morning  paper  in  the  soimd 
Of  the  debilitating  heavy  Train. 
London  again,  again.    London  again. 

The  whole  poem  is  a  gem  of  artistic  description — 
light,  airy,  suggestive,  and  yet  poignant.  In  it  Mr 
Monro  has  raised  a  commonplace  idea  into  the  realm 
of  fancy  and  imagination.     Thousands  of  released 


INTRODUCTORY  99 

workers  will  be  eternally  grateful  to  him  for  having 
expressed  their  thoughts  and  feelings  so  delightfully. 
It  is  indeed  a  pleasure  to  find  Mr  Masefield  return- 
ing to  his  earlier  style  of  poetry.  His  period  of  long 
narrative  verse  is  apparently  over,  and  in  the  half- 
dozen  Shakespearean  sonnets  here  given  us  we  gloat 
over  the  recovery  of  the  author  of  Poems  and  Ballads. 
He  sings  again  the  hymn  of  Beauty  simply  and 
thoughtfully,  seeking,  as  ever,  for  an  answer  to  the 
riddle  that  so  baffles  us  : 

Here  in  the  self  is  all  that  man  can  know 

Of  Beauty,  all  the  wonder,  all  the  power. 
All  the  unearthly  colour,  all  the  glow. 

Here  in  the  self  which  withers  like  a  flower  ; 
Here  in  the  self,  which  fades  as  hours  pass. 

And  droops  and  dies  and  rots  and  is  forgotten 
Sooner,  by  ages,  than  the  mirroring  glass 

In  which  it  sees  its  glory  still  unrotten. 
Here  in  the  flesh,  within  the  flesh,  behind. 

Swift  in  the  blood  and  throbbing  on  the  bone, 
Beauty  herself,  the  universal  mind. 

Eternal  April  wandering  alone  ; 
The  God,  the  holy  Ghost,  the  atoning  Lord, 
Here  in  the  flesh,  the  never  yet  explored. 

That  is  the  unfathomable  mystery  to  him,  why  the 
glory  of  the  human  face  and  form  divine  should 
contain  all  that  there  is  of  Beauty,  and  yet  be  allowed 
to  decay  like  the  rose.  Like  Rupert  Brooke,  he  is 
infatuated  with  the  glory  of  the  material :  he  wants 
to  get  within  and  behind  the  "  cells  at  their  hidden 
marvels  hard  at  work,"  and  "  attain  to  where  the 
rulers  lurk  " — "  Then,  on  man's  earthly  peak,  I  might 
behold  The  unearthly  self  beyond,  unguessed,  untold." 
He  proceeds  to  sing  the  praises  of  man's  soul, 


100  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  \^^ITERS 

That  takes  its  earth's  contentment  in  the  pen, 
Then  sees  the  world's  injustice  and  is  wroth, 

And  flinging  off  youth's  happy  promise,  flies 
Up  to  some  breach,  despising  earthly  things. 

And,  in  contempt  of  hell  and  heaven,  dies 

Rather  than  bear  some  yoke  of  priests  or  kings.  .  .  . 

As  felicitous  a  description  of  the  happy  warrior  of 
to-day  as  one  could  wish. 

There  is  nothing  of  Ralph  Hodgson's  this  time  to 
compare  in  excellence  of  idea  or  execution  with  The 
Bull  or  The  Song  of  Honour,  nor  could  we  well  expect 
it ;  but  in  the  three  short  verses  by  which  he  is 
represented  there  is  enough  music  and  sweetness  to 
send  those  who  are  still  unacquainted  with  his  work 
back  to  his  greater,  more  ambitious  poetry. 

In  The  Gipsy  Girl  he  pictures  with  exquisite 
economy  and  sureness  of  touch  the  "  fair  "  girl  at  the 
cocoanut-shy  : 

A  man  came  up,  too  loose  of  tongue, 

And  said  no  good  to  her  ; 
She  did  not  blush  as  Saxons  do, 

Or  turn  upon  the  cur  : 
She  fawned  and  whined,  "  Sweet  gentleman, 

A  penny  for  three  tries  !  " 
But  oh,  the  den  of  wild  things  in 

The  darkness  of  her  eyes  ! 

An  equally  happy  note  (which  would  please  Mr 
Galsworthy)  is  struck  in  The  Bells  of  Heaven  : 

'Twould  ring  the  bells  of  Heaven, 

The  wildest  peal  for  years, 
If  parson  lost  his  senses 

And  people  came  to  theirs. 
And  he  and  they  together 

Knelt  down  with  angry  prayers 


INTRODUCTORY  101 

For  tamed  and  shabby  tigers 

And  dancing  dogs  and  bears, 
And  wretched,  blind  pit  ponies, 

And  little  hunted  hares. 

With  Robert  Graves  we  return  to  the  soldier-poets. 
In  It's  a  Queer  Time  he  takes  four  examples  of  the 
instantaneous  change  that  comes  over  a  man  while 
he  is  fighting  : 

One  moment  you'll  be  crouching  at  your  gun 
Traversing,  mowing  heaps  down  half  in  fun  : 

The  next,  you  choke  and  clutch  at  your  right  breast — 
No  time  to  think — leave  all — and  off  you  go  .  .  . 
To  Treasure  Island  where  the  spice  winds  blows, 
To  lovely  groves  of  mango,  quince  and  lime — 

Breathe  no  good-bye,  but  ho,  for  the  Red  West ! 
It's  a  queer  time. 

Or  you  may  be  charging  madly,  suddenly  fall,  and 
find  yourself  back  in  the  Big  Barn  digging  tunnels 
through  the  hay,  clad  in  your  old  sailor  suit ;  or, 
again,  you  may  be  startled  out  of  your  doze  in  your 
dug-out  by  a  cataclysmic  shock,  and  then  see  Elsie 
(who  died  ten  years  ago)  come  tripping  gaily  down 
the  trench,  "  hanky  to  nose,"  getting  her  pinafore  all 
over  grime  : 

The  trouble  is,  things  happen  much  too  quick  ; 
Up  jump  the  Bosches,  rifles  thump  and  click. 

You  stagger,  and  the  whole  scene  fades  away  : 
Even  good  Christians  don't  like  passing  straight 
From  Tipperary  or  their  Hymn  of  Hate 
To  Alleluiah-chanting,  and  the  chime 
Of  golden  harps  .  .  .  and  .  .  .  I'm  not  well  to- 
day .  .  . 
It's  a  queer  time. 

In  Goliath  and  David,  an  elegy  on  a  friend,  he 
reverses  the  Biblical  story  :  "  The  historian  of  that 
fight  had  not  the  heart  to  tell  it  right."     Here  we 


102         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

are  shown  the  young  boy  fooUshly  flinging  pebbles 
which  GoHath  easily  parries  with  his  huge  shield,  and 
then  trying,  with  equal  futility,  to  conquer  the  ogre 
with  his  staff  of  Mamre  oak.  The  inevitable  happens, 
and  we  are  left  looking  at  the  sad  picture  of  the  spike- 
helmeted,  grey,  dim  Goliath  straddling  over  the  body 
of  the  beautiful  youth. 

In  another  poem  he  paints  a  delicious  picture  of 
a  boy  in  church  : 

I  add  the  hymns  up  over  and  over 

Until  there's  not  the  least  mistake. 
Seven-seventy-one.     (Look  !    There's  a  plover ! 

It's  gone  !)  .  .  . 
It's  pleasant  here  for  dreams  and  thinking, 

Lolling  and  letting  reason  nod. 
With  ugly,  serious  people  linking 

Prayer-chains  for  a  forgiving  God. 

But  his  most  beautiful  piece  of  work  is  Christ  in  the 
Wilderness,  speaking  soft  words  of  grace  unto  lost 
desert-folk : 

Basilisk,  cockatrice. 

Flocked  to  his  homilies  .  .  . 

Great  rats  on  leather  wings 

And  poor  blind  broken  things.  . 

And  ever  with  him  went, 

Of  all  his  wanderings 

Comrade,  ^vith  ragged  coat, 

Gaimt  ribs — poor  innocent — 

Bleeding  foot,  burning  throat. 

The  guileless  old  scapegoat. 

Here,  at  any  rate,  we  have  a  poet  who  thinks,  who 
has  an  original  mind  and  a  gift  for  weaving  his 
thoughts  into  a  rhythmical,  disciplined  form. 

Wilfrid  Gibson  gives  us  a  glimpse  of  his  musical 
strength  in  For  G» : 


INTRODUCTORY  103 

All  night  under  the  moon 

Plovers  are  flying 
Over  the  dreaming  meadows  of  silvery  light, 
Over  the  meadows  of  June, 

Flying  and  crying — 
Wandering  voices  of  love  in  the  hush  of  the  night. 
All  night  under  the  moon, 

Love,  though  we're  lying 
Quietly  under  the  thatch,  in  silvery  light 
Over  the  meadows  of  June 

Together  we're  flying — 
Rapturous  voices  of  love  in  the  hush  of  the  night. 

That  is  a  song  which  any  poet  might  be  proud  to 
have  written,  but  he  does  not  often  reach  this  height. 
He,  too,  touches  on  the  war,  for  the  most  part  with 
no  very  marked  success  ;  but  Lament,  at  least,  rings 
true  : 

We  who  are  left,  how  shall  we  look  again 
Happily  on  the  sun,  or  feel  the  rain 
Without  remembering  how  they  who  went 
Ungrudgingly  and  spent 
Their  lives  for  us  loved,  too,  the  sun  and  rain  ? 

A  bird  among  the  rain- wet  lilac  sings  ; 

But  we,  how  shall  we  turn  to  little  things. 

And  listen  to  the  birds  and  winds  and  streams 

Made  holy  by  their  dreams, 

Nor  feel  the  heart-break  in  the  heart  of  things  ? 

John  Freeman  has  already  received  some  apprecia- 
tion, for  he  has  been  writing  poetry  for  several  years — 
poetry  of  a  sort  that  made  some  of  us  wonder  why 
he  was  not  included  before. 

Reparation  has  been  amply  made  to  him,  for  twelve 
valuable  pages  are  devoted  to  excerpts  from  his  work. 
In  Discovery  we  get  a  clue  to  his  attitude  to  life  and 
a  glimpse  of  his  gift. 


104  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

It  was  my  eyes,  Beauty,  that  made  thee  bright ; 

My  ears  that  heard,  the  blood  leaping  in  my  veins, 

The  vehemence  of  transfiguring  thought — 

Not  lights  and  shadows,  birds,  grasses  and  rains — 

That  made  thy  wonders  wonderful. 

For  it  has  been,  Beauty,  that  I  have  seen  thee, 

Tedious  as  a  painted  cloth  at  a  bad  play, 

Empty  of  meaning  and  so  of  all  delight. 

Now  thou  hast  blessed  me  with  a  great  pure  bliss. 

Shaking  thy  rainy  light  all  over  the  earth. 

And  I  have  paid  thee  with  my  thankfulness. 

In  his  most  ambitious  poem.  The  Pigeons,  he  tells 
most  poignantly  the  story  of  two  children  dying  of 
starvation,  *'  though  food  within  the  cupboard  idle 
lay  beyond  their  thought,  or  but  beyond  their  reach." 

There  is  not  pity  enough  in  heaven  or  earth, 
There  is  not  love  enough,  if  children  die 
Like  famished  birds — oh,  less  mercifully. 
A  great  WTong's  done  when  such  as  these  go  forth 
Into  the  starless  dark,  broken  and  bruised, 
With  mind  and  sweet  affection  all  confused. 
And  horror  closing  round  them  as  they  go. 
There  is  not  pity  enough  ! 

He,  too,  is  driven  by  the  war  to  write  of  the  change 
that  has  been  wrought  in  us : 

Whate'er  was  dear  before  is  dearer  now. 
There's  not  a  bird  singing  upon  his  bough 
But  sings  the  sweeter  in  our  English  ears  : 
There's  not  a  nobleness  of  heart,  hand,  brain, 
But  shines  the  purer  ;  happiest  is  England  now 
In  those  that  fight,  and  watch  with  pride  and  tears. 

In  many  ways  Mr  Freeman  seems  to  surpass  the 
other  poets  of  his  time  :  he  is  more  severe,  he  is 
harder  to  appreciate  on  a  first  reading,  but  he  has  the 
power  both  to  feel  and  to  express  what  he  feels, 


INTRODUCTORY  105 

whether  it  be  the  impression  made  on  him  by  "  these 
November  skies  "  than  which  "  is  no  sky  loveHer,"  or 
by  music  when  the  brain's  asleep,  or  by  the  "  lovely 
moon  that  lovelike  hovers  over  the  wandering,  tired 
earth,  her  bosom  grey  and  dovelike,  hovering  beautiful 
as  a  dove,  or  the  silver  frost  upon  the  window-pane, 
flowering  and  branching  each  starving  night  anew." 

John  Drinkwater  sings  again  his  eulogy  of  the  Mid- 
lands and  his  Cotswold  home  : 

I  see  the  valleys  in  their  morning  mist 

Wreathed  under  limpid  hills  in  moving  light 

Happy  with  many  a  yeoman  melodist : 

I  see  the  little  roads  of  twinkling  white 

Busy  with  fieldward  teams  and  market  gear 

Of  rosy  men,  cloth-gaitered,  who  can  tell 

The  many-minded  changes  of  the  year. 

Who  know  why  crops  and  kine  fare  ill  or  well ; 

I  see  the  sun  persuade  the  mist  away. 

Till  town  and  stead  are  shining  to  the  day. 

I  see  the  waggons  move  along  the  rows 

Of  ripe  and  summer-breathing  clover-flower, 

I  see  the  lissom  husbandman  who  knows 

Deep  in  his  heart  the  beauty  of  his  power. 

As,  lithely  pitched,  the  full-heaped  fork  bids  on 

The  harvest  home.  .  .  . 

I  see  the  barns  and  comely  manors  planned 

By  men  who  somehow  moved  in  comely  thought  .  .  . 

I  see  the  little  cottages  that  keep 

Their  beauty  still  where  since  Plantagenet 

Have  come  the  shepherds  happily  to  sleep.  .  .  . 

The  beauty  of  the  countryside  so  moves  him  that 
when  night  descends  he  turns  to  sleep,  content  that 
from  his  sires  he  draws  the  blood  of  England's  mid- 
most shires  ;  and,  though  he  does  not  think  that 
skies  and  meadows  are  moral,  or  that  the  fixity  of  a 
star  comes  of  a  quiet  spirit,  or  that  trees  have  wisdom, 


106  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

yet  these  things  certainly  exercise  a  moral  effect  on 
him,  teaching  him  the  virtues  of  constancy,  peace, 
and  fortitude. 

Walter  de  la  Mare  is  as  musical  as  ever,  but  not 
so  simple.     He,  too,  is  changed  by  the  war : 

They're  all  at  war  ! 

Yes,  yes,  their  bodies  go 
'Neath  burning  sun  and  icy  star 

To  chaunted  songs  of  woe, 
Dragging  cold  cannon  through  a  mire 
Of  rain  and  blood  and  spouting  fire. 
The  new  moon  glinting  hard  on  eyes 

Wide  with  insanities  ! 

He  is  for  the  first  time  obscure,  and  we  no  longer 
feel  the  temptation  to  dwell  on  the  magic  lilt  of  his 
metre. 

W.  H.  Davies  continues  to  sing  of  simple 
country  delights  untouched  by  war's  alarms,  of  larks 
and  nightingales,  and  the  thrush's  five  blue  eggs,  of 
cowslips  and  grass  and  storms  on  the  Mendip  hills. 
One  singularly  happy  touch  of  his  genius  is  to  be 
found  in  Easter  : 

A  butterfly — ^from  who  knows  where — 
Comes  with  a  stagger  through  the  air, 
And,  lying  down,  doth  ope  and  close 
His  wings,  as  babies  work  their  toes  ; 
Perhaps  he  thinks  of  pressing  tight 
Into  his  wings  a  little  light ! 

It  is  good  indeed  for  our  peace  of  mind  that  some 
one  should  sing  of  Nature's  charms  with  his  eye  on 
the  object.  Of  all  present-day  singers  Mr  Davies 
comes  nearest  to  Keats's  definition  of  what  a  poet 
should  be  : 

And  they  shall  be  accounted  poet  kings 
Who  simply  tell  the  most  heart-easing  things. 


INTRODUCTORY  107 

Mr  Gordon  Bottomley,  who  follows  next,  gives  us 
in  Atlantis  his  view  of  poetry  : 

Poetry  is  founded  on  the  hearts  of  men  : 

Though  in  Nirvana  or  the  Heavenly  courts 

The  principle  of  beauty  shall  persist, 

Its  body  of  poetry,  as  the  body  of  man, 

Is  but  a  terrene  form,  a  terrene  use, 

That  swifter  being  will  not  loiter  with  ; 

And,  when  mankind  is  dead  and  the  world  cold, 

Poetry's  immortality  will  pass. 

Maurice  Baring  appears  for  the  first  time  with  a 
poem  which  is  surer  of  immortality  than  any  other 
in  the  book.  It  is  great  fun  predicting  lasting  fame 
for  contemporary  poets,  the  more  so  because  critics 
are  nearly  always  wrong.  One  has  only  to  turn  back 
to  the  days  of  Keats  and  Shelley  to  see  this  ;  but 
in  Baring's  long  elegy,  In  Memoriam,  A.  H.  (Auberon 
Herbert,  Captain  Lord  Lucas,  R.F.C.),  we  feel  tempted 
to  say  that  it  will  take  its  place  among  the  great 
elegies,  Thyrsis,  Lycidas,  Adonais.  After  all,  great 
occasions  bring  out  the  great  men,  and  of  noble  men 
it  ought  to  be  possible  to  write  nobly.  This  Captain 
Baring  has  most  certainly  achieved,  and  we  are  grate- 
ful to  him  and  to  Mr  Marsh  for  making  accessible  to 
the  general  public  a  poem  about  which  every  one 
had  long  been  talking,  but  few  had  read.  Unfortu- 
nately, it  is  one  of  those  perfectly  executed  master- 
pieces out  of  which  it  is  wellnigh  impossible  to  extract 
adequate  quotations.  It  must  be  read  in  its  entirety 
before  any  judgment  can  be  passed  on  it. 

It  opens  with  a  description  of  the  last  meeting 
between  "A.  H."  and  the  poet : 

The  wind  had  blown  away  the  rain 

That  all  da  y  long  had  soaked  the  level  plain  .  .  . 


108  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  \^TIITERS 

The  streaming  clouds,  shot-riddled  banners,  wet 
With  the  flickering  storm, 
Drifted  and  smouldered.  .  .  . 

The  friends  look  at  the  orange  sea,  the  fllaming  firma- 
ment, and  wonder  what  they  mean — ^the  end  of  the 
world  or  the  end  of  the  war  ? 

Alas  !  it  meant  not  this,  it  meant  not  that ; 

It  meant  that  now  the  last  time  you  and  I 

Should  look  at  the  golden  sky, 

And  the  dark  fields  large  and  flat, 

And  smell  the  evening  weather, 

And  laugh  and  talk  and  wonder  both  together. 

Then  begins  the  keening  of  the  friend  for  the  de- 
parted : 

Something  is  broken  which  we  cannot  mend. 
God  has  done  more  than  take  away  a  friend 
In  taking  you  ;  for  all  that  we  have  left 
Is  bruised  and  irremediably  bereft. 

There  follows  a  stanza  calling  up  memories  of  "  A.  H.'s" 
early  life  : 

O  liberal  heart  fast-rooted  to  the  soil, 

O  lover  of  ancient  freedom  and  proud  toil. 

Friend  of  the  gipsies  and  all  wandering  song  .  .  . 

We  wondered  could  you  tarry  long, 

And  brook  for  long  the  cramping  street. 

Or  would  you  one  day  sail  for  shores  unknown  ? 

The  poet  thereupon  returns  to  his  lament : 

You  shall  not  come  again, 

You  shall  not  come  to  taste  the  old  spring  weather, 
To  gallop  through  the  soft  untrampled  heather, 
To  bathe  and  bake  your  body  on  the  grass. 

After  which  he  refers  to  a  dream  he  had  that  his 


INTRODUCTORY  109 

friend  was  missing,  waking  only  to  find  it  true  :    at 
first  he  refused  to  believe  it  .  .  .  but 

After  days  of  watching,  days  of  lead, 

There  came  the  certain  news  that  you  were  dead. 

Then  follows  a  passage  which  makes  one's  blood  thrill 
with  pride  to  belong  to  such  a  race  : 

You  had  died  fighting,  fighting  against  odds. 
Such  as  in  war  the  gods 

Ethereal  dared  when  all  the  world  was  young  ; 
Such  fighting  as  blind  Homer  never  simg. 
Nor  Hector  nor  Achilles  never  knew  .  .  . 

immediately  succeeded  by  another  that  recalls  the 
end  of  Samson  Agonistes  : 

Here  is  no  waste. 

No  burning  Might-have-been, 

No  bitter  after-taste. 

None  to  censure,  none  to  screen. 

Nothing  awry,  nor  anything  misspent ; 

Only  content,  content  beyond  content. 

Which  hath  not  any  room  for  betterment. 

From  this  point  the  poem  rises  higher  and  higher 
in  praise  of  the  dead  warrior  now  "  passed  a  rightful 
citizen  of  the  bright  commonwealth  ablaze  beyond 
our  ken."  Surely  he  is  now  one  with  the  Knights  of 
the  Table  Round,  their  long-expected  guest,  among 
the  chosen  few  welcomed  to  that  companionship 
which  hath  no  end.  Then  the  end  comes  quietly, 
subdued,  dwelling  on  us  who  are  left : 

And  then  you  know  that  somewhere  in  the  world, 
That  shines  far  off  beneath  you  like  a  gem. 

They  think  of  you  .  .  . 
You  know  that  they  will  wipe  away  their  tears  ;  .  .  . 


110  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

That  it  is  well  with  them  because  they  know  .  .  . 
That  it  is  well  with  you. 
Among  the  chosen  few, 
Among  the  very  brave,  the  very  true. 

For  this  poem  alone  the  book  would  become  one 
of  our  most  treasured  possessions.  We  have  learnt 
to  love  Captain  Baring  as  a  humorist  and  as  an 
authority  on  Russian  literature  :  now  he  takes  his 
place  as  one  of  the  great  poets  of  our  time,  and  in 
taking  leave  of  him  we  reluctantly  close  the  book, 
only  regretful  that  a  long  time  must  pass  before  we 
can  hope  to  add  another  volume  to  our  anthologies  of 
contemporary  poetry  so  good  as  this. 

I  cannot  pass  on  to  my  detailed  criticism  without 
commenting  on  The  Dark  Fire,  by  W.  J.  Turner, 
which  contains  five  exquisite  sonnets  on  The  Pompa- 
dour in  Art,  which  I  should  like  to  quote  in  extensOt 
as  they  give  such  a  splendid  insight  into  what  the 
younger  generation  is  doing  and  thinking  : 

Would'st  thou  go  back  to  that  white  nakedness 
Among  the  dark  trees  glinting  in  the  sim, 
Their  feet  white  marble  where  the  cool  brooks  run. 
Their  frail,  light  fingers  flushed  with  happiness  ? 
A  white  dream  in  the  hot  day's  breathlessness 
Would'st  thou  enfold  in  thy  hot,  lustful  arms  ? 
Or  would'st  thou  have  no  traffic  with  these  charms, 
Dost  then  indeed  love  primitive  ugliness  ? 
"  To  Nature  "  is  thy  cry,  "  abandon  all 
Voluptuous  ornament  and  toilet  tricks  !  " 
Back  to  the  healthy  days  before  the  fall 
When  mother  Eve  her  food-foul  fingers  licks 
And  recks  not  of  her  heavy  shapelessnessT 
Her  dirty  nails,  her  dark  skin's  hairiness  ? 

As  for  myself,  proudly  I  confess 

I  love  not  matter  hrniped  and  unadorned. 

Five  feet  of  flesh  is  but  a  cow  unhomed 


INTRODUCTORY  111 

If  the  quick  spirit  show  not  in  the  dress  ; 

Blushes  are  roses  in  a  wilderness, 

And  pencilled  eyebrows  are  the  soul's  delight ; 

The  Moon  is  not  more  lovely  in  the  night 

Than  are  white  shoulders  in  a  shadowy  dress  : 

And  in  silk  stockings  frailly  gleam  white  limbs 

Like  candles  drawing  painted  butterflies  : 

And  dressed  hair  gives  the  soul  an  earthless  flower 

That  shines  into  our  eager,  seeking  eyes.  .  .  . 

His  second  sonnet  on  Coquetry  in  Clothes,  and  the 
fourth  on  The  Wife,  formed  to  stir  clay,  but  only 
with  the  plough,  I  am  perforce  bound  to  omit. 

But  Beauty  is  more  delicate  than  the  wind, 

Trackless  and  as  intangible  as  light ; 

It  cannot  be  pinned  down  for  common  sight ; 

Like  violets  in  a  wood  it  haunts  us  blind, 

Though  scentless  trees  are  mirrored  in  our  mind. 

A  girl's  dress  is  a  lovely  wood,  a  night 

Of  flowing  clouds  and  shattered,  shaken  light ; 

An  arabesque  of  dust  to  dust  resigned. 

With  cloud  and  wood  and  star,  and  her  bright  love  : 

And  in  these  rags,  and  in  the  dust  of  worlds. 

Beauty  departed  lies  as  lies  the  dove 

In  a  few  feathers  bleaching  in  the  sun — 

As  the  form  crumbles  so  the  spirit  wanes 

And  we'll  not  find  it  more  for  all  our  pains. 

It  is  worth  noticing  that  the  wheel  has  come  full 
circle,  and  the  poet  of  1919  shakes  hands  with  the 
mediaeval  pre-war  age  of  Rupert  Brooke,  over 
the  question  of  the  value  of  material  beauty.  We 
may  have  lost  our  harsh  note,  the  war  has  made  us 
more  unselfish  and  mellowed  our  thoughts,  but  we 
still  hanker  fiercely  after  material  joys. 

A  word  on  Captain  Paul  Bewsher,  D.S.C.,  and  I 
have  done.     The  Bombing  of  Bruges  is  an  intensely 


112  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

interesting  book  because  it  portrays  in  quite  unforget- 
table verse  the  attitude  of  the  airman  towards  life  : 

The  world  looks  barren  from  the  air, 
Its  charms  are  lost — its  soul  is  dead  : 

None  of  a  thrush's  joy  you  share, 
For,  when  you  thunder  overhead, 

Below  you  lies  like  some  great  plan 

A  hundred  miles  in  one  brief  span. 

You  turn  no  corner  with  surprise 

And  wonder  what  your  eyes  will  greet, 

And  know  not  what  before  you  lies, 
Uncertainty  is  very  sweet — 

To  taste  new  pleasures  with  each  mile 

And  see  new  fields  above  each  stile. 

There  are  no  flowers  in  the  sky 

Which  shyly  lurk  beneath  the  grass  : 

You  see  no  cowslip  as  you  fly, 
By  no  gay  buttercup  you  pass  : 

No  waxen  chestnut  blossoms  bloom 

To  cast  rich  fragrance  through  the  gloom. 

And  here  is  his  confession  of  love  : 

There  are  three  things  I  love  far  more  than  all : 

The  quiet  hour  of  dusk,  when  all  is  blue. 

And  trees  and  streets  and  roofs  have  one  frail  hue  j 

Sublime  October,  when  the  red  leaves  fall, 

And  bronze  chrysanthemums  along  the  wall 

Burn  bravely  when  the  other  flowers  are  few  ; 

My  grey  and  lovely  London,  where  the  view 

Is  veiled  in  mist  and  crowned  with  spires  tall.  .  .  . 

He  gives  us  a  vivid  description  of  the  thoughts  that 
pass  through  the  mind  of  the  airman  as  he  bombs 
unhappy  innocents  :  he  explams  how  "  he  who  has 
knelt  high  on  the  night  "  will  lose  his  mind's  per- 
spective. 


INTRODUCTORY  118 

Every  boast 
Which  man  makes  will  seem  so  childish,  vain, 
That  he  himself  will  never  boast  again. 
For  men  will  seem  so  small,  their  work  so  frail 
To  him  who  has  been  often  wont  to  sail 
Where  half  a  country  lay  before  his  eyes 
As  he  gazed  downwards  from  the  midnight  skies. 

The  air  in  Paul  Bewsher  has  its  interpreter,  the 
Army  its  interpreter  in  Nichols,  Sassoon,  Ivor 
Gurney,  and  a  host  of  other  soldier-poets  ;  it  is 
strange  that  we  should  still  be  waiting  for  an  authentic 
voice  to  sing  to  us  of  war  as  visioned  by  the  sailor, 
but  the  fact  remains  that  the  Navy  has,  as  yet, 
produced  no  great,  no  authentic  interpreter. 


II 

J.  C.  SQUIRE 

I  WANT  to  talk  of  J.  C.  Squire  the  poet,  but  two 
things  stand  in  the  way,  Books  in  General 
and  Tricks  of  the  Trade,  neither  of  which  can 
be  classed  as  poetry.  This  most  versatile  of  our 
younger  writers  refuses  to  be  classified  as  a  mere 
poet :  whatever  he  touches  he  adorns,  and  therefore 
it  is  necessary  to  notice  briefly  his  achievement  as  a 
critic  and  a  parodist  before  we  aspire  to  place  him 
in  his  proper  category.  Under  the  pseudonym  of 
"  Solomon  Eagle  "  he  discourses  glibly  week  by  week 
on  "  Books  in  General  "  in  The  New  Statesman,  and 
imder  his  own  name  on  the  same  subject  in  Land  and 
Water.  He  is  perpaps  the  ablest  literary  critic  alive 
and  does  for  literature  to-day  much  what  Shaw  did 
for  the  theatre  in  The  Saturday  Review  of  several 
years  ago.  All  is  equally  good  grist  to  his  mill :  his 
object  in  Books  in  General  (as  he  too  modestly 
puts  it)  "is  to  produce  the  sort  of  book  that  one 
reads  in,  without  tedium,  for  ten  minutes  before  one 
goes  to  sleep."  He  does  far  more  than  that ;  he 
makes  such  unlikely  topics  as  "  Who's  "WTio  "  and 
Political  Songs  matters  of  great  and  absorbing  in- 
terest :  he  intrigues  us  afresh  with  the  Baconian 
theory  and  makes  us  rack  our  brains  to  remember  a 
worse  line  in  poetry  than  "  The  beetle  booms  adown 
the  glooms  and  bumps  among  the  clumps,"  or  a  more 
futile  stanza  of  verse  than 

H4 


J.  C.  SQUIRE  115 

Farewell,  farewell,  bonny  St  Ives, 

May  I  live  to  see  you  again. 
Your  air  preserves  people's  lives 

And  you  have  so  little  rain. 

Occasionally  he  condescends  to  act  the  critic  in 
the  conventional  guise.  "  Mrs  Barclay  certainly  has 
skill.  Nobody  else  can  write  a  silly  story  half  so 
well  as  she.  .  .  .  The  hero  of  this  book  [The  Rosary] 
is  as  generous  as  he  is  clever.  He  can  conjure ;  he 
can  make  seagulls  settle  on  his  shoulder  ;  and  he  does 
kind  actions  to  widows."  And  again,  "  As  I  read 
his  [Mr  Galsworthy's]  books  I  feel  as  if  I  were  in 
some  cheerless  seaside  lodging-house  on  a  wet  day." 
He  sees  life  as  "meanly  cruel  and  pallidly  contemp- 
tible." "  At  heart  a  humanitarian,  he  has  got  into  a 
dismal  and  costive  kind  of  literary  method  which 
makes  him  look  like  a  fretful  and  dyspeptic  man  who 
curls  his  discontented  nostrils  at  life  as  though  it 
were  an  unpleasing  smell.  As  Ibsen  used  so  often  to 
remark,  there  is  a  great  deal  wrong  with  the  drains  ; 
but  after  all  there  are  other  parts  of  the  edifice." 
He  puts  in  a  good  word  for  Herrick  as  one  of  the 
greatest  small  masters  in  the  history  of  verse,  and 
in  The  Muse  in  Liquor  quotes  G.  K.  Chesterton's 
wonderful  drinking  song,  one  stanza  of  which  I  hai^ten 
to  write  out  again  for  the  sheer  joy  of  so  doing  : 

Old  Noah  he  had  an  ostrich  farm  and  fowls  on  the  largest 
scale, 
He  ate  his  eggs  with  a  ladle  in  an  eggcup  big  as  a 
pail, 
And  the  soup  he  took  was  Elephant  Soup,  and  the  fish  he 
took  was  whale, 
But  they  all  were  small  to  the  cellar  he  took  when  he 
set  out  to  sail, 


116  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

And  Noah  he  often  said  to  his  wife  when  he  sat  do^vn  to 

dine, 
"  I  don't  care  where  the  water  goes  if  it  doesn't  get  into 

the  wine." 

"  Lives  there,"  comments  Squire,  "  a  man  with  soul 
so  dead  that  when  he  comes  across  this  ...  he  does 
not  automatically  improvise  a  tune  to  it  and  start, 
according  to  his  ability,  singing  it  ?  "  It  is  splendid 
to  hear  him  say  of  Samuel  Butler  that  "  though  the 
worst  of  his  books  is  good  reading,  the  Note-Books  is 
as  certainly  his  fmest  book  as  Boswell's  Johnson  is 
the  finest  of  Johnson's."  He  has  an  unerring  instinct 
for  picking  out  the  superlatively  good  among  the 
books  he  is  called  upon  to  review. 

Sir  Arthur  Quiller-Couch's  On  the  Art  of  Writing 
he  speaks  of  as  "  extraordinarily  good.  .  .  .  Even 
readers  who  do  not  desire  to  write  at  all  will  find 
Sir  Arthur's  jokes  very  amusing  and  his  criticisms, 
general  and  particular,  sound  and  (what  is  more  un- 
usual) new."  He  is  not  ashamed  to  say  of  Words- 
worth, "  And  then  one  goes  back  to  his  poetry — 
and  his  prose — and  hears  a  voice  of  almost  unsur- 
passed grandeur  speaking  the  deepest  of  one's  unex- 
pressed thoughts,  appealing  to  and  drawing  out  all  the 
divinest  powers  in  man's  nature.  .  .  .  He  speaks 
direct  to  the  labouring  intellect  and  the  sensitive 
heart ;  and  the  enjoyment  of  him,  if  great,  is  usually 
enjoyment  of  the  austerer  kind,  like  mountain-climb- 
ing." He  defends  Henry  James  :  "  In  an  age  of  sloppy 
writing  he  stood  for  accuracy  of  craftsmanship."  The 
books  that  Mr  Squire  would  choose  for  a  long  stay  on 
a  desert  island  serve  as  an  index  to  his  character  : 
Shakespeare,  Boswell,  Rabelais,  end  Morte  d' Arthur. 
"  There  is  a  strong  case  for  taking  a  selection  of  the 
more  morose  and  bewildered  modern  novels  ...  or 


J.  C.  SQUIRE  117 

a  judicious  selection  from  Artzybascheff,  Mr  Cannan, 
and  Mr  D.  H.  Lawrence.  For  these  would  do  a  great 
deal  to  reconcile  one  to  one's  lonely  lot.  One  would 
find  an  everflowing  spring  of  consolation  in  them. 
'  After  all,'  one  would  say,  after  each  agued  page, 
'  there  is  a  good  deal  to  be  said  for  a  desert  island.'  " 
On  Lyly's  Euphues  he  contributes  a  useful  criticism  ; 
"  What  a  really  judicious  critic  would  do  would  be  to 
ridicule  the  style  and  admire  the  book."  He  is  young 
enough  to  see  genius  in  Mr  James  Joyce,  though  he 
laments  that  "  he  can  never  resist  a  dunghill.  He  is 
not,  in  fact,  quite  above  the  pleasure  of  being  shocking," 
and  he  is  poet  enough  to  realise  that  Ralph  Hodgson's 
The  Bull  is  one  of  the  finest  poems  of  our  generation. 
In  fact.  Books  in  General  serves  as  an  admirable 
prelude  to  a  survey  of  his  creative  work :  it  shows 
us  a  young,  sensitive,  humorous  genius,  fully  alive 
to  the  main  tendencies  of  contemporary  writers  of 
prose  and  verse,  in  sympathy  with  his  fellows,  and 
a  worshipper  at  the  shrine  of  the  established  writers, 
and  not  without  a  love  for  the  slaves  of  the  craft. 

Tricks  of  the  Trade  shows  him  as  a  consummate 
parodist. 

The  whole  gospel  of  W.  H.  Davies  becomes  clear 
as  one  reads  : 

I  saw  some  sheep  upon  some  grass. 

The  sheep  were  fat,  the  grass  was  green. 

The  sheep  were  white  as  clouds  that  pass. 
And  greener  grass  was  never  seen  : 

I  thought,  "  Oh,  how  my  bliss  is  deep. 

With  such  green  grass  and  such  fat  sheep  !  " 

The  secret  of  the  source  from  which  Sir  Henry 
Newbolt  derived  his  lilt  is  at  once  apparent  when  we 
read  the  following  : 


118  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WTIITERS 

Blake  and  Drake  and  Nelson  are  listenin'  where  they  lie, 
Four  and  twenty  blackbirds  a-bakin'  in  a  pie. 

Chesterton's  love  of  paradox  and  colour  is  flaunted 
once  again  in 

With  a  rumour  of  ghostly  things  that  pass 
With  a  thunderous  pennon  of  pain, 

To  a  land  where  the  sky  is  as  red  as  the  grass, 
And  the  sun  as  green  as  the  rain. 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  Canon  Rawnsley  will  never 
again  dare  to  attempt  poetry  after  reading  this 
merciless  parody  of  his  vein  :  ^ 

Britannia  mourns  for  good  grey  heads  that  fall, 
Survivors  from  our  great  Victoria's  reign  ; 

For  they  were  men  :  take  them  for  all  in  all 
We  shall  not  look  upon  their  like  again. 

Full  justice  is  done  to  H.  G.  Wells'  typographical 
idiosyncrasy,  and  to  Shaw's  dramatic  qualities.  The 
best  part  of  the  book  is  devoted  to  "  How  They 
Would  Have  Done  It."  Here  we  see  Wordsworth 
rewriting  The  Everlasting  Mercy,  Swinburne  at  work 
on  a  modem  edition  of  The  Lay  of  Horatius,  and 
Masefield  out-Masefielding  himself  on  the  subject  of 
Ca^ahianca, 

"  You  dirty  hog,"  "  You  snouty  snipe," 
"  You  lump  of  muck,"  "  You  bag  of  tripe," 
Such,  as  their  latest  breath  they  drew. 
The  objurgations  of  the  crew. 

they  roared 

As  they  went  tumbling  overboard. 
Or  frizzled  like  so  many  suppers 
All  along  the  halyard  scuppers.  .  .  . 
Young  Cassy  cried  again  :   "  Oh,  damn  ! 
What  an  unhappy  put  I  am  ! 


J.  C.  SQUIRE  119 

Will  nobody  go  out  and  search 

For  dad,  who's  left  me  in  the  lurch  ? 

For  dad,  who's  left  me  on  the  poop, 

For  dad,  who's  left  me  in  the  soup.  ..." 

And  all  the  tender  champaign  fills 

With  hyacinths  and  daffodils, 

And  on  God's  azure  uplands  now 

They  plough  the  ploughed  fields  with  a  plough. 

All  the  faults  of  the  latter-day  Masefield  are  to  be 
found  in  this  short  extract.  Gray  writing  his  Elegy  in 
the  cemetery  of  Spoon  River  instead  of  in  that  of  Stoke 
Poges  gives  Mr  Squire  another  splendid  chance  : 

Full  many  a  vice  is  born  to  thrive  unseen, 

Full  many  a  crime  the  world  does  not  discuss, 
Full  many  a  pervert  lives  to  reach  a  green 

Replete  old  age,  and  so  it  was  with  us.  .  .  . 
There  are  two  hundred  only  :   yet  of  these 

Some  thirty  died  of  drowning  in  the  river. 
Sixteen  went  mad,  ten  others  had  D.T.'s 

And  twenty-eight  cirrhosis  of  the  liver. 

The  Lotus  Eaters,  as  written  by  a  very  new  poet, 
strikes  home  : 

Bring  me  six  cushions 

A  yellow  one,  a  green  one,  a  purple  one,  an  orange 

one,  an  ultramarine  one,  and  a  vermilion  one, 
Colours  of  which  the  combination 
Pleases  my  eye. 
Bring  me 
Also 

Six  lemon  squashes 
And 

A  straw.  .  .  . 
I  have  taken  off  my  coat. 
I  shall  now 
Loosen 
My  braces. 


120  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

Now  I  am 
AU  right  .  .  . 
My  God  ... 
I  do  feel  lazy  ! 

The  Church  Catechism  as  rewritten  by  Henry  James 
is  intensely  funny,  but  too  long  to  quote,  and  Lord 
Byron's  Passing  of  Arthur  contains  some  rhymes  that 
would  have  made  that  poet  extremely  envious  : 

"  Quite  likely,"  answered  Arthur,  "  and  I'm  sure 
That  I  have  been  so  hammered  by  these  swine 

To-morrow's  sun  will  find  us  yet  one  fewer. 
I  prithee  take  me  to  yon  lonely  shrine 

Where  I  may  rest  and  die.     There  is  no  cure 
For  men  with  sixty-seven  wounds  like  mine." 

So  Bedivere  did  very  firmly  grapple 

His  arm,  and  led  him  to  the  Baptist  Chapel. 

Again  : 

.  .  .  and  Bedivere,  who  had 
No  nerve  at  all  left  now,  exclaimed,  "  My  Hat ! 
I'll  never  want  another  job  like  that !  " 

And  lastly  : 

.  .  .  and  the  disconsolate  knight 
In  a  harsh  bitter  voice  replied,  "  Oh,  damn  it  all, 
I  saw  a  mystic  arm,  clothed  in  white  samite  all." 

Even  from  these  disconnected  excerpts  it  is  easy 
to  see  that  Squire  can  challenge  comparison  in  verse 
with  what  Max  Beerbohm  has  done  in  caricature  and 
A  Christmas  Garland :  by  slight  exaggeration  and 
suggestion  of  the  grotesque  he  can  make  us  realise  at 
a  lightning  glance  the  essential  weaknesses  of  great 
masters  of  poetry.  It  is  all  amazingly  clever  and 
mirth-provoking. 

But  it  is,  I  imagine,  as  a  poet  that  Mr  Squire  would 


J.  C.  SQUIRE  121 

have  us  finally  pass  judgment  upon  him.  In  March  1918 
he  issued  a  volume  of  poetry  which,  in  his  own  words, 
"  contains  all  that  I  do  not  wish  to  destroy  of  the 
contents  of  four  volumes  of  verse." 

Sol 

Here  offer  all  I  have  found  : 

A  few  bright  stainless  flowers 

And  richer,  earthlier  blooms,  and  homely  grain, 

And  roots  that  grew  distorted  in  the  dark, 

And  shapes  of  livid  hue  and  sprawling  form 

Dragged  from  the  deepest  waters  I  have  searched. 

Most  diverse  gifts,  yet  all  alike  in  this  : 

They  are  all  the  natural  products  of  my  mind 

And  heart  and  senses  : 

And  all  with  labour  grown,  or  plucked,  or  caught. 

The  most  obvious  criticism  to  make  on  turning 
over  the  pages  is  that  there  is,  as  we  should  have  ex- 
pected, always  evidence  of  a  sharpened  intellect,  but 
by  no  means  always  a  sense  of  beauty  in  these  verses. 
He  tries  all  kinds  of  tricks  with  metres,  and  almost  his 
most  ambitious  poem  Rivers  relies  very  little  on  rhyme 
for  its  success.  This,  of  course,  puts  a  large  burden 
on  to  the  thought  and  vocabulary,  and  sometimes  the 
thought  and  the  vocabulary  are  not  strong  enough  to 
stand  the  extra  strain. 

One  of  the  reasons  why  one  sees  so  quickly  through 
Wordsworth's  poverty  of  thought  (when  it  is  poor)  is 
that  he  bravely  discards  all  sensuousness  of  music 
and  inflated  language  by  the  use  of  which  he  might 
have  deceived  even  the  elect.  But  surely  such  a  man 
is  worthier  of  honour  than  a  Swinburne,  who  so 
seduces  our  senses  that  we  are  content  to  believe 
that  the  juxtaposition  of  beautiful  words  really  con- 
notes beautiful  ideas. 

But  our  business  is  rather  concerned  with  those 


122  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

passages  which  exemplify  the  best  of  Squire  and 
explain  the  working  of  his  mind  : 

Even  in  peopled  streets  at  times 
A  metaphysic  arm  is  thrust 
Through  the  partitioning  fabric  thin, 
And  tears  away  the  darkening  pall 
Cast  by  the  bright  phenomenal  .  .  . 
But  rarely  hold  I  converse  thus 
Where  shapes  are  bright  and  clamorous, 
More  often  comes  the  word  divine 
In  places  motionless  and  far  ; 
Beneath  the  white  peculiar  shine 
Of  sunless  summer  afternoons  ; 
At  eventide  on  pale  lagoons 
Where  hangs  reflected  one  pale  star  ; 
Or  deep  in  the  green  solitudes 
Of  still  erect  entranced  woods. 

His  philosophy  is  best  expressed  in  his  own  happiest 
(but  rather  tricky)  metre  : 

Fall  the  dice,  not  once  or  twice,  but  always,  to  make  the 

self-same  sum  ; 
Chance  what  may,  a  life's  a  life  and  to  a  single  goal  must 

come ; 
Though  a  man  search  far  and  wide,   never  is  hunger 

satisfied ; 
Nature  brings  her  natural  fetters,  man  is  meshed  and  the 

wise  are  dumb. 
O  vain  all  art  to  assuage  a  heart  with  accents  of  a  mortal 

tongue, 
All  earthly  words  are  incomplete  and  only  sweet  are  the 

songs  unsung, 
Never  yet  was  cause  for  regret,  yet  regret  must  afflict 

us  all. 
Better  it  were  to  grasp  the  world,  thwart  which  this  world 

is  a  curtain  flung. 


J.  C.  SQUIRE  123 

There  is  a  Song  of  three  verses  which,  better  than 
any  other  of  his  poems,  shows  his  strange  disregard 
of  more  disciplined  methods  and  yet  succeeds  in 
achieving  beauty  : 

There  is  a  wood  where  the  fairies  dance 

All  night  long  in  a  ring  of  mushrooms  daintily, 

By  each  tree  bole  sits  a  squirrel  or  a  mole, 

And  the  moon  through  the  branches  darts. 

Light  on  the  grass  their  slim  limbs  glance, 

Their  shadows  in  the  moonlight  swing  in  quiet  unison. 

And  the  moon  discovers  that  they  all  have  lovers, 

But  they  never  break  their  hearts. 

They  never  grieve  at  all  for  sands  that  run, 

They  never  know  regret  for  a  deed  that's  done. 

And  they  never  think  of  going  to  a  shed  with  a  gun 

At  the  rising  of  the  sun. 

In  The  Mind  of  Man  he  seems  to  be  carrying  on 
a  tradition  started  in  the  far-off  Caroline  days  by 
Donne,  and  carried  on  by  Rupert  Brooke  among  the 
Georgians  : 

Beneath  my  skull-bone  and  my  hair, 

Covered  like  a  poisonous  well. 
There  is  a  land  ;   if  you  looked  there 

What  you  saw  you'd  quail  to  tell. 
You  that  sit  there  smiling,  you 
Know  that  what  I  say  is  true. 

In  its  clean  groves  and  spacious  halls 

The  quiet-eyed  inhabitants 
Hold  innocent  sunny  festivals 

And  mingle  in  decorous  dance  ; 
Things  that  destroy,  distort,  deface, 
Come  never  to  that  lovely  place. 

Never  could  evil  enter  thither, 
It  could  not  live  in  that  sweet  air. 


124  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

The  shadow  of  an  ill  deed  must  wither 

And  fall  away  to  nothing  there. 
You  would  say  as  there  you  stand 
That  all  was  beauty  in  the  land. 

But  there  are  other  compartments  in  the  mind  of 
man  : 

Here  in  this  reedy  marsh  of  green 

And  oily  pools,  swarm  insects  fat 
And  birds  of  prey  and  beasts  obscene, 

Things  that  the  traveller  shudders  at, 
All  cunning  things  that  creep  and  fly 
To  suck  men's  blood  until  they  die. 

And  there  are  worse,  more  "  purulent  "  places  than 
these.  A  Reasonable  Protestation  again  carries  us 
a  few  steps  further  towards  understanding  his  philo- 
sophic point  of  view : 

Thirsty  as  you,  perhaps,  I  long 

For  courtyards  of  eternal  song,  .  .  . 

But  though  I  hope  with  strengthening  faith 

To  taste  when  I  have  traversed  death 

The  unimaginable  sweetness 

Of  certitude  of  such  concreteness. 

How  should  I  draw  the  hue  and  scope 

Of  substances  I  only  hope 

Or  blaze  upon  a  paper  screen 

The  evidence  of  things  not  seen  ?  .  .  . 

I  see  what  I  can,  not  what  I  \N'ill.  .  .  . 

I  see  the  symbols  God  hath  drest.  .  .  . 

Did  I  now  glibly  insolent 

Chart  the  ulterior  firmament. 

Would  you  not  know  my  words  were  Ues, 

Where  not  my  testimonial  eyes 

Mortal  or  spiritual  lodge, 

Mere  uncorroborated  fudge  ? 

Praise  me  .  .  .  that  I  what  I  see  and  feel  I  write, 

Read  what  I  can  in  this  dim  light 

Granted  to  me  in  nether  night.  .  .  . 


J.  C.  SQUIRE  125 

I  have  not  lacked  my  certainties, 
I  have  not  haggard  moaned  the  skies, 
Nor  waged  unnecessary  strife 
Nor  scorned  nor  overvalued  life. 
And  though  you  say  my  attitude 
Is  questioning,  concede  my  mood 
Does  never  bring  to  tongue  or  pen 
Accents  of  gloomy  modern  men.  .  .  . 

His  Ode:  in  a  Restaurant  stands  out  from  most 
of  the  rest  of  the  book,  and  will  doubtless  find  its  way 
into  future  anthologies  : 

In  this  dense  hall  of  green  and  gold, 
Mirrors  and  lights  and  steam,  there  sit 
Two  hundred  munching  men  ; 
WTiile  several  score  of  others  flit 
Like  scurrying  beetles  over  a  fen. 
With  plates  in  fanlike  spread  .  .  . 
Gobble,  gobble,  toil  and  trouble. 
Soul !     This  life  is  very  strange, 
And  circumstances  very  foul 
Attend  the  belly's  stormy  howl. 

He  compares  the  noise  of  the  band  to  "  keen-drawn 
threads  of  ink  dropped  into  a  glass  of  water,  which 
curl  and  relax  and  soften  and  pass."  Disgusted  with 
the  sight  of  people  eating  he  yet  calls  upon  his  soul 
to  remember  that 

They  also  have  hot  blood,  quick  thought, 

And  try  to  do  the  things  they  ought. 

They  also  have  hearts  that  ache  when  strung, 

And  sigh  for  days  when  they  were  young  .  .  . 

Self,  you  can  imagine  nought 

Of  all  the  battles  they  have  fought, 

All  the  labours  they  have  done. 

All  the  journeys  they  have  run. 

Nay,  more,  the  very  food  provides  romance  : 


126         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

For  this  one  meal 

Ten  thousand  Indian  hamlets  stored  their  yields, 

Manchmnan  peasants  sweltered  in  their  fields, 

And  Greeks  drove  carts  to  Patras  .  .  . 

To   fabricate  these    things    have    been    marchings    and 

slaughters, 
The  sun  has  toiled  and  the  moon  has  moved  the  waters  . ,  . 

.  .  .  paths  have  been  hewn 
Through  forests  where  for  uncounted  years  nor  sun  nor 

moon 
Have  penetrated  .  .  .  wrinkled  sailors  have  shouted  at 

shouting  gales 
In  the  huge  Pacific,  and  battled  around  the  Horn  .  .  . 
The  mutton  which  these  platters  fills 
Grazed  upon  a  thousand  hills  ; 
This  bread  so  square  and  white  and  dry 
Once  was  corn  that  sang  to  the  sky  ; 
And  all  these  spruce,  obedient  wines 
Flowed  from  the  vatted  fruit  of  vines 
That  trailed,  a  bright  maternal  host. 
The  warm  Mediterranean  coast  .  .  , 
O  wonderful  procession  fore-ordained  by  God  ! 
Wonderful  in  unity,  wonderful  in  diversity.  .  .  . 
I  was  born  for  that  reason. 

With  muscles,  heart  and  eyes, 
To  watch  each  following  season. 
To  work  and  to  be  wise. 

The  whole  poem  is  a  wonderful  attempt  to  grasp 
at  a  problem  which  must  have  obsessed  us  all  as  we 
have  sat  alone  and  aloof  in  some  large  restaurant, 
letting  our  brain  play  on  the  reasons  for  all  this 
seeming  orgy  and  waste. 

On  a  Friend  Recently  Bead  contains  some  good 
lines,  notably  : 

You  are  not  here,  but  I  am  here  alone. 

And  evening  falls,  fusing  tree,  water  and  stone 

Into  a  violet  cloth,  and  the  frail  ash-tree  hisses 


J.  C.  SQUIRE  127 

With  a  soft  sharpness  hke  a  fall  of  mounded  grain.  .  .  . 
And  I,  I  see  myself  as  one  of  a  heap  of  stones 
Wetted  a  moment  to  life  as  the  flying  wave  goes  over, 
Onward  and  never  returning,  leaving  no  mark  behind. 

I  suppose  The  Lily  of  Malud  is  the  most  famous 
poem  in  the  book,  and  certainly  in  this  magic  narrative 
he  justifies  his  use  of  his  extraordinary  metre  : 

The  lily  of  Malud  is  born  in  secret  mud. 
It  is  breathed  like  a  word  in  a  little  dark  ravine 
Where  no  bird  was  ever  heard  and  no  beast  was  ever  seen, 
And  the  leaves  are  never  stirred  by  the  panther's  velvet 
sheen. 

This  lily  blooms  once  a  year  and  dies  in  a  night : 

And  when  that  night  has  come,  black  small-breasted  maids, 
With  ecstatic  terror  dumb,  steal  fawn-like  through  the 
shades  .  .  . 

From  the  doors  the  maidens  creep, 
Tiptoe  over  dreaming  curs,  soft,  so  soft,  that  not  one  stirs. 
And  stand  curved  and  a-quiver,  like  bathers  by  a  river. 
Looking  at  the  forest  wall,  groups  of  slender  naked  girls. 
Whose  black  bodies  shine  like  pearls  where  the  moon- 
beams fall. 

They  move 

Onwards  on  the  scarce-felt  path,  with  quick  and  desperate 

breath. 
For  their  circling  fingers  dread  to  caress  some  slimy  head, 
Or  to  touch  the  icy  shape  of  a  hunched  and  hairy  ape. 
And  at  every  step  they  fear  in  their  very  midst  to  hear 
A  lion's  rending  roar  or  a  tiger's  snore  .  .  . 
And  when  things  swish  or  fall,  they  shiver  but  dare  not 

call. 

Having  beheld  the  vision  they  return  home  and  are 
as  they  ever  were  : 


128  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

Save  only  for  a  rare  shade  of  trouble  in  their  eyes. 

And  the  surly  thick-lipped  men,  as  they  sit  about  their 

huts 
Making  drums  out  of  guts,  grunting  gruffly  now  and  then, 
Carving  sticks  of  ivory,  stretching  shields  of  wrinkled  skin, 
Smoothing  sinister  and  thin  squatting  gods  of  ebony, 
Chip  and  grunt  and  do  not  see.     But  each  mother,  silently. 
Longer  than  her  wont  stays  shut  in  the  dimness  of  her  hut, 

trying  to  remember 

Something  sorrowful  and  far,  something  sweet  and  vaguely 

seen 
Like  an  early  evening  star  when  the  sky  is  pale  green  .  .  . 
Something  holy  in  the  past  that  came  and  did  not  last. 
But  she  knows  not  what  it  was. 

This  poem  as  has  much  "  atmosphere  "  in  it  as  The 
Ancient  Mariner,  and  improves  with  every  reading. 

But  for  myself  I  prefer  To  a  Bulldog  to  any  other 
poem  that  Mr  Squire  has  written  or  is  ever  likely 
to  write.  It  is  by  far  the  most  effective  war-poem 
of  its  kind,  its  very  simplicity  adding  a  million-fold 
to  its  poignancy.  It  stands  the  test  of  being  read 
aloud  without,  as  he  himself  says  of  some  one  else's 
poetry,  making  you  feel  a  fool  at  being  let  down  in 
any  line : 

We  sha'n't  see  Willy  any  more,  Mamie, 
He  won't  be  coming  any  more  : 
He  came  back  once  and  again  and  again. 
But  he  won't  get  leave  any  more. 

We  looked  from  the  window  and  there  was  his  cab. 

And  we  ran  downstairs  hke  a  streak. 

And  he  said  "  Hullo,  you  bad  dog,"  and  you  crouched  to 

the  floor. 
Paralysed  to  hear  him  speak. 
And  then  let  fly  at  his  face  and  his  chest 
Till  I  had  to  hold  you  down. 


J.  C.  SQUIRE  129 

While  he  took  off  his  cap  and  his  gloves  and  his  coat, 
And  his  bag  and  his  thonged  Sam  Browne.  .  .  . 

Then  follows  a  picture  of  the  dog's  master  on  leave 
fondling  all  the  drawings  he  had  left  behind,  and 
opening  the  cupboard  to  look  at  his  belongings  every 
time  he  came  : 

But  now  I  know  what  a  dog  doesn't  know  .  .  . 
And  all  your  life  you  vnW  never  know 
What  I  wouldn't  tell  you  even  if  I  could, 
That  the  last  time  we  waved  him  away 
Willy  went  for  good.  .  .  . 

He  ruminates  over  the  good  days  that  are  now  over 
for  ever  : 

When  summer  comes  again. 

And  the  long  sunsets  fade, 
We  shall  have  to  go  on  playing  the  feeble  game  for  two 

That  since  the  war  we've  played. 

And  though  you  run  expectant  as  you  always  do 

To  the  uniforms  we  meet, 
You'll  never  find  Willy  among  all  the  soldiers 

In  even  the  longest  street.  .  .  . 
I  must  sit,  not  speaking,  on  the  sofa, 

WTiile  you  lie  asleep  on  the  floor  ; 
For  he's  suffered  a  thing  that  dogs  couldn't  dream  of. 

And  he  won't  be  coming  here  any  more. 

I  pass  over  Under,  which  is  an  unintelligible  night- 
mare, and  the  long  poem  on  Rivers,  which  almost 
succeeds  in  being  great  in  spite  of  its  lack  of  rhyme, 
and  he  finishes  with  a  sonnet  which  many  people 
place  at  the  head  of  his  achievement : 

I  shall  make  beauty  out  of  many  things  : 

Lights,  colours,  motions,  sky  and  earth  and  sea. 

The  soft  unbosoming  of  all  the  springs 

Which  that  inscrutable  hand  allows  to  me, 

I 


180         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  ^^T^ITERS 

Odours  of  flowers,  sounds  of  smitten  strings. 

The  voice  of  many  a  wind  in  many  a  tree. 
Fields,  rivers,  moors,  swift  feet  and  floating  wings, 

Rocks,  caves,  and  hills  that  stand  and  clouds  that  flee. 
Men  also  and  women,  beautiful  and  dear, 

Shall  come  and  pass  and  leave  a  fragrant  breath  ; 
And  my  own  heart,  laughter  and  pain  and  fear, 

The  majesties  of  evil  and  of  death  ; 
But  never,  never  shall  my  verses  trace 
The  loveliness  of  your  most  lovely  face. 

A  poem  which  taken  together  with  Envoi  may  well 
be  said  to  place  Mr  Squire  high  among  contemporary 
poets  : 

Beloved,  when  my  heart's  awake  to  God 

And  all  the  world  becomes  his  testimony. 

In  you  I  most  do  see,  in  your  brave  spirit, 

Erect  and  certain,  flashing  deeds  of  light, 

A  pure  jet  from  the  fountain  of  all  being, 

A  scripture  clearer  than  all  else  to  read. 

And  when  behef  was  dead  and  God  a  myth. 

And  the  world  seemed  a  wandering  mote  of  evil, 

Endurable  only  by  its  impermanence, 

And  all  the  planets  perishable  urns 

Of  perished  ashes,  to  you  alone  I  clung 

Amid  the  unspeakable  loneliness  of  the  universe. 


in 

SIEGFRIED  SASSOON 

IT  seems  a  far  cry  from  the  old  days  of  the  Bul- 
lingdon,  the  Rousers,  and  the  Loder,  when  whips 
were  cracked  in  "  Peck,"  and  young  men  rejoiced 
in  the  hunt  of  the  fox  with  the  Bicester  and  the 
"  Drag,"  to  the  war-poetry  of  1917,  but  Mr  Sassoon  has 
effectually  bridged  the  distance. 

In  The  Old  Huntsman  and  Other  Poems  he  has 
collected  some  seventy-odd  poems,  which  mark  him 
out  as  one  of  the  little  group  of  young  warriors  who 
felt  impelled  to  put  their  impressions  of  war  into  verse, 
one  with  them  in  his  appreciation  of  the  beautiful  and 
his  curiosity  about  the  dead,  but  not  in  the  least 
like  any  other  of  them  in  his  manner  of  writing  or  the 
conclusions  at  which  he  arrives  about  the  effect  which 
fighting  has  upon  him. 

In  the  first  place  he  is  colloquial,  pellucidly  clear, 
simple,  terse,  and  straightforward.  He  dwells  rather 
on  the  ironic  side  of  it  all ;  as  a  satirist  in  verse  he 
excels.  He,  least  of  all  the  younger  poets,  can  find 
glamour  and  nobility  in  the  war.  He  paints  ruth- 
lessly what  he  sees,  and  what  he  sees  is  no  thin  red 
line  or  charge  of  heavy  or  light  brigade.  For  the 
most  part  he  regards  war  as  an  intolerable  waste  of 
good  material. 

To  any  Dead  Officer  who  left  School  for  the  Army 
in  1914,  he  writes  : 

Good-bye,  old  lad  !     Remember  me  to  God, 
And  tell  Him  that  our  Politicians  swear 
131 


182         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

They  won't  give  in  till  Prussian  Rule's  been  trod 
Under  the  heel  of  England.  .  .  .  Are  you  there  ?  .  .  . 
Yes  .  .  .  and  the  War  won't  end  for  at  least  two  years  ; 
But  we've  got  stacks  of  men  .  .  .  I'm  blind  with  tears, 
Staring  into  the  dark.     Cheero  ! 
I  wish  they'd  killed  you  in  a  decent  show. 

This  reads  amazingly  like  prose,  but  the  white  heat 
of  his  indignation  raises  the  simple  theme  of  his 
thought  up  out  of  the  ruck  of  ordinary  common- 
place, and  the  very  ordinariness  of  it  takes  on  the 
guise  of  something  that  is  unforgettable  ;  it  may  not 
be  poetry,  according  to  the  critic's  canon,  but  it 
strikes  home  and  we  feel,  with  the  writer,  "  blind 
with  tears  "  at  the  purposelessness  of  such  wanton 
destruction. 

In  the  poem  which  gives  the  title  to  the  book  we 
are  shown  an  old  huntsman  living  over  again  by  his 
cottage  fireside  great  days  of  old  with  the  hounds. 
He  ponders  on  his  probable  future  when  he  is  dead  : 

Hell  was  the  coldest  scenting  land  I've  known, 

And  both  my  whips  were  always  lost,  and  hounds 

Would  never  get  their  heads  down  ;  and  a  man 

On  a  great  yawing  chestnut  trying  to  cast  'em 

While  I  was  in  a  comer  pounded  by 

The  ugliest  hog-backed  stile  you've  clapped  your  eyes  on. 

There  was  an  iron-spiked  fence  round  all  the  coverts, 

And  civil-spoken  keepers  I  couldn't  trust, 

And  the  main  earth  unstopped. 

There  will  be  many  lovers  of  the  chase  who  wiU  sym- 
pathise with  that  picture  and  turn  with  a  thrill  of 
further  appreciation  to  this  : 

I've  come  to  think  of  God  as  something  like 
The  figure  of  a  man  the  old  Duke  was 
When  I  was  turning  hounds  to  Nimrod  King, 
Before  his  Grace  was  took  so  bad  with  gout. 


SIEGFRIED  SASSOON  188 

And  had  to  quit  the  saddle.     Tall  and  spare, 
Clean-shaved  and  grey,  with  shrewd,  kind  eyes  that 

twinkled 
And  easy  walk  .  .  .  Lord  God  might  be  like  that, 
Sitting  alone  in  a  great  room  of  books 
Some  evening  after  hunting. 

Already  we  can  see  why  Mr  Sassoon  dedicated  his 
book  to  Thomas  Hardy.  There  is  the  same  passionate 
love  of  the  countryside,  the  same  sympathetic  vision 
of  the  rustic,  the  same  keen  irony  and  Swift-like 
detestation  of  frippery  and  unreality. 

Mr  Sassoon,  like  many  other  subalterns  taking  a 
hand  in  the  "  great  game,"  is  filled  with  loathing  at 
war  under  modern  conditions,  and  he  is  too  courageous 
to  pretend  that  it  is  otherwise  with  him.  He  can 
even  dare  to  sympathise  with  and  openly  print  the 
sentiments  of  the  one-legged  man,  which  would  cer- 
tainly be  censored  or  else  howled  down  by  nine-tenths 
of  the  filre -eating  civilian  population  : 

Propped  on  a  stick  he  viewed  the  August  weald  ; 

Squat  orchard  trees  and  oasts  with  painted  cowls  ; 

A  homely,  tangled  hedge,  a  corn-stooked  field, 

With  sound  of  barking  dogs  and  farmyard  fowls. 

And  he'd  come  home  again  to  find  it  more 

Desirable  than  ever  it  was  before. 

How  right  it  seemed  that  he  should  reach  the  span 

Of  comfortable  years  allowed  to  man  ! 

Splendid  to  eat  and  sleep  and  choose  a  wife, 

Safe  with  his  wound,  a  citizen  of  life. 

He  hobbled  blithely  through  the  garden  gate. 

And  thought :   "  Thank  God  they  had  to  amputate  I  " 

It  is  just  as  well  that  when  future  generations  find 
themselves  forgetting,  amid  the  calm,  slack  waters  of 
peace,  the  horrors  that  belong  to  war,  they  should 


IM         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

have  the  testimony  and  warning  before  them  of  some 
one  who  knew,  having  seen  and  felt  and  suffered,  and 
in  his  suffering  told  what  he  endured  in  no  imcertain 
voice. 

Mr  Sassoon  is  at  one  again  with  all  the  other  poets 
of  his  time  when  he  comes  to  write  about  his  dead 
comrades.  The  unanimity  with  which  the  modem 
soldier-poets  sing  of  the  mingling  of  their  lost  com- 
panions with  the  glories  of  nature  is  worth  the 
psychic's  earnest  attention  :  it  is  a  phenomenon  not 
the  least  marvellous  in  an  age  of  amazing  discoveries  : 

Their  faces  are  the  fair,  unshrouded  night. 
And  planets  are  their  eyes,  their  ageless  dreams. 
Tenderly  stooping  earthward  from  their  height. 
They  wander  in  the  dusk  with  chanting  streams  : 
And  they  are  dawn-lit  trees,  with  arms  up-flung, 
To  hail  the  burning  heavens  they  left  unsung. 

His  anger  at  the  war  itself  is  as  nothing  compared 
with  the  fury  into  which  he  lashes  himself  when  he 
writes  of  the  way  that  the  war  is  treated  at  home,  in 
the  music-halls  for  example.  Perhaps  the  supreme 
example  of  this  is  to  be  found  in  Blighters  : 

The  House  is  crammed  :  tier  beyond  tier  they  grin 
And  cackle  at  the  Show,  while  prancing  ranks 
Of  harlots  shrill  the  chorus,  drunk  with  din  ; 
"  We're  siue  the  Kaiser  loves  the  dear  old  Tanks  I  " 
I'd  hke  to  see  a  Tank  come  down  the  stalls, 
Lurching  to  rag- time  tunes,  or  "  Home,  Sweet  Home," 
And  there'd  be  no  more  jokes  in  music-halls 
To  mock  the  riddled  corpses  round  Bapaume. 

In  a  poem,  entitled  Stretcher  Case,  "  dedicated  to 
Edward  Marsh,"  he  depicts  the  impression  which 
England  makes  on  the  returned  casualty  in  a  quite 
new  light : 


SIEGFRIED  SASSOON  185 

But  was  he  back  in  Blighty  ?     Slow  he  turned. 
Till  in  his  heart  thanksgiving  leapt  and  burned. 
There  shone  the  blue  serene,  the  prosperous  land, 
Trees,  cows,  and  hedges  ;  skipping  these,  he  scanned 
Large,  friendly  names  that  change  not  with  the  year, 
Lung  Tonic,  Mustard,  Liver  Pills,  and  Beer. 

But  it  is  not  only  upon  the  war  that  Mr  Sassoon 
dwells  :  he  has  that  deep  passion  for  beauty  without 
which  no  poet  can  hope  for  a  permanent  place  in  our 
hearts,  beauty  whether  expressed  in  the  petals  of  a 
rose  or  a  sky  at  dawn  or  any  other  natural  glory : 
this  on  rain  is  typical : 

Rain  ;  he  could  hear  it  rustling  through  the  dark  ; 
Fragrance  and  passionless  music  woven  as  one  ; 
Warm  rain  on  drooping  roses  ;  pattering  showers 
That  soak  the  woods  ;  not  the  harsh  rain  that  sweeps 
Behind  the  thunder,  but  a  trickling  peace 
Gently  and  slowly  washing  life  away. 

This  is  not  only  beautiful,  but  true.  Mr  Sassoon 
fulfils  Wordsworth's  conditions  of  keeping  his  eye  on 
the  object,  and  he  heightens  his  effect  by  the  strict 
accuracy  of  each  stroke. 

Many  poets  have  (of  late)  tried  to  describe  in  poetry 
the  romance  of  the  train,  but  in  Morning  Eccpress 
Mr  Sassoon  has,  I  think,  eclipsed  the  others,  partly 
because  of  his  literal  precision,  his  selection,  and  his 
simplicity,  partly  also  because  of  his  economy  in  the 
use  of  words  :  it  is  a  severely  reticent  picture,  austere, 
exact,  and  withal  beautiful.  There  is  something  of 
the  Pre-Raphaelite  in  his  work  here  : 

Along  the  wind-swept  platform,  pinched  and  white 
The  travellers  stand  in  pools  of  wintry  light, 
Offering  themselves  to  mom's  long,  slanting  arrows. 
The  train's  due  ;   porters  trundle  laden  barrow». 


186  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

The  train  steams  in,  volleying  resplendent  clouds 
Of  sun-blown  vapour.  .  .  . 
Boys,  indolent-eyed,  from  baskets  leaning  back, 
Question  each  face  ;  a  man  with  a  hammer  steals 
Stooping  from  coach  to  coach  ;  with  clang  and  clack, 
Touches  and  tests  and  listens  to  the  wheels  .  .  . 

.  .  .  the  monster  grunts  :   "  Enough  !  " 
Tightening  his  load  of  links  with  pant  and  puff. 
Under  the  arch,  then  forth  into  blue  day. 
Glide  the  processional  windows  on  their  way, 
And  glimpse  the  stately  folk  who  sit  at  ease 
To  view  the  world  like  kings  taking  the  seas 
In  prosperous  weather  :  drifting  banners  tell 
Their  progress  to  the  coimties  :  with  them  goes 
The  clamour  of  their  journeying.  .  .  . 

But  by  far  the  most  precious  quality  about  Mr  Sassoon 
is  that  in  spite  of  his  righteous  anger  there  is  behind  all 
this  an  indomitable  courage  and  a  splendid  optimism  : 

I  keep  such  music  in  my  brain 
No  din  this  side  of  death  can  quell, — 
Glory  exulting  over  pain. 
And  beauty,  garlanded  in  hell. 

Like  his  own  old  huntsman  and  Rupert  Brooke  he 
shows  very  clearly  that  he  is  a  real  lover  of  life,  and 
furthermore  that  he  is  a  devout  lover  of  life.    For 

Where's  the  use  of  life  and  being  glad 
If  God's  not  in  your  gladness  ? 

he  asks  not  once  nor  twice  but  many  times  in  these 
poems  ;  "  Jesus  keep  me  joyful  when  I  pray."  There 
is  an  ever-present  hopefulness  and  joy  in  his  work 
which  charms  us  and  rings  all  the  truer  because  we 
feel  so  certain  that  this  hopefulness  and  this  joy  are 
not  an  insecure  refuge,  built  upon  insincerity  and  lies, 
but  found  after  many  searchiugs  of  heart  and  much 


SIEGFRIED  SASSOON  137 

striving  to  winnow  the  chaff  from  the  wheat  in  the 
harvest  of  Ufe. 

I.  Poets  of  his  calibre  are  rare  indeed  :  so  many  of 
those  who  showed  promise  of  great  things,  hke  Francis 
Ledwidge  and  Rupert  Brooke,  are  now  silent.  It  will 
be  the  fervent  wish  of  all  those  who  read  Mr  Sassoon's 
work  that  he  may  be  spared  to  fulfil  the  prophecies 
which  the  critics  have  ventured  upon  with  regard  to 
his  powers,  and  continue  to  sing  even  more  sweetly, 
more  surely  now  that  peace  has  returned. 

Even  now,  above  the  tumult  and  the  din  of  the 
aftermath  of  war,  his  voice  rings  out,  irrepressible, 
strangely  elated  and  clear  : 

The  world's  my  field,  and  I'm  the  lark. 
Alone  with  upward  song,  alone  with  light. 

Are  we  not  justified  in  hoping  for  even  more  haunt- 
ing melodies,  even  grander  poems  when  quietude 
descends  upon  the  land  ? 


IV 
ROBERT  NICHOLS 

IN  any  discussion  or  criticism  of  modem  art  it 
is  impossible  to  avoid  imagining  what  the  artist 
would  have  achieved  had  he  not  been  swept  into 
the  swirl  and  eddy  of  war.  In  the  Napoleonic  era  it 
seemed  possible  to  pursue  one's  craft  as  though  no 
world-shaking  conflict  were  taking  place.  Not  so 
to-day.  Far  too  many  of  our  most  promising  young 
writers  have  been  killed,  cut  off  in  the  middle  of  their 
song. 

No  man  can  pretend  to  view  life  as  he  saw  it  a  few 
years  ago  :  whether  we  hke  it  or  not  our  very  souls 
are  altogether  changed,  in  many  instances  not  for  the 
better.  It  is,  however,  a  truism  that  the  poet  thrives 
best  when  he  is  suffering  most ;  consequently  not  a 
few  whose  names  were  unknown  in  1914  found 
themselves  on  the  battlefield  and  leapt  into  fame  as 
poets. 

High  among  these  I  would  place  Robert  Nichols. 
So  new  a  poet  is  he  that  you  will  search  in  vain  for 
his  name  in  any  anthology  published  before  Mr  Edward 
Marsh  included  some  of  his  work  in  the  third  volume 
of  Georgian  Poetry  (1915-1917). 

But  in  the  volume  of  poems  called  Ardours  and 
Endurances  there  is  sufficient  warrant  for  my  assertion 
that  he  is  one  of  the  major  poets  of  the  day. 

At  the  end  of  the  most  ambitious  poem  of  the  book 
(it  occupies  nearly  seventy  pages),  A  Faunas  Holiday » 
he  writes  : 

ij8 


ROBERT  NICHOLS  180 

There  is  something  in  me  divine, 
And  it  must  out.     For  this  was  I 
Born,  and  I  know  I  cannot  die 
Until,  perfected  pipe,  thou  send 
My  utmost :  God,  which  is  the  end. 

In  other  words,  Hke  so  many  other  poets,  he  recog- 
nises that  he  is  one  of  those  rare  beings  chosen  to 
voice  the  dehght  of  life,  and  that  he  is  bound  to  fulfil 
his  mission  before  death  can  claim  him. 

"  Beauty,  be  thou  my  star  I  "  he  sings  in  another 
poem.  Not  that  he  need  have  said  so  in  so  many 
words,  for  dull  must  he  be  of  vision  who  cannot 
realise  from  the  very  first  pages  of  this  book  that  he 
pursues  his  one  aim  with  a  persistent  zeal  and  a 
wealth  of  diction  that  will  ensure  his  reaching  heights 
imdreamt  of  by  most  other  poets  of  our  time.  But 
he  warns  us  that 

Those  whose  love  but  shines  a  hint 

Fainter  than  the  far  sea's  glint 

To  the  inland  gazer's  sight — 

These  alone,  and  but  in  part 

Guess  of  what  my  songs  are  spim, 

And  Who  holds  communion 

Subtly  with  my  troubled  heart  .  .  . 

One  Day,  or  maybe  one  Night — 

Living  ?     Dying  ? — I  shall  see 

The  Rose  open  gloriously 

On  its  heart  of  living  hght. 

Know  what  any  bird  may  mean, 

Meteor  in  my  heart  shall  rest. 

Spelled  on  my  brain  blaze  th'  unguessed 

Words  of  the  rainbow's  dazzling  sheen. 

The  volume  is  divided  up  into  three  books :  the 
first  dealing  entirely  with  the  war.  In  Part  I  he 
tell*  of  the  summons  : 


140         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

Honour  it  is  that  calls  :  canst  thou  forget 

Once  thou  wert  strong  ?     Listen  ;  the  solemn  call 

Sounds  but  this  once  again.     Put  by  regret 

For  summons  missed,  or  thou  hast  missed  them  all. 

Then  comes  the  approach,  the  distant  boom  of  the 
guns  : 

Nearer  and  ever  nearer  .  .  . 

My  body,  tired  but  tense, 

Hovers  't>vixt  vague  pleasure 

And  tremulous  confidence. 

Arms  to  have  and  to  use  them. 

And  a  soul  to  be  made 

Worthy  if  not  worthy  ; 

If  afraid,  unafraid. 

These  last  four  lines  sum  up  the  gospel  of  the  soldier 
before  his  initiation  into  war  more  aptly  and  perfectly 
than  many  volumes  of  so-called  battle  psychology 
have  been  able  to. 

When  the  soul  has  been  made  worthy  there  appears 
to  the  proved  soldier  a  vision  ;  he  becomes  articulate. 
He  discovers  what  war  really  means,  which  is  not 
at  all  what  he  expected  or  the  civilian  would  believe. 
All  these  young  men  have  given  utterance  to  what 
they  have  seen,  and  in  each  case  it  is  the  same.  We 
have,  for  instance,  the  testimony  of  Hugh  Walpole 
(perhaps  the  most  brilliant  novelist  of  our  time), 
who  says : 

"  War  is  made  up  of  a  million  million  past  thoughts, 
past  scenes,  streets  of  little  country  towns,  lonely 
hills,  dark  sheltered  valleys,  the  wide  space  of  the 
sea,  the  crowded  traffic  of  New  York,  London,  Berlin, 
yes,  and  of  smaller  things  than  that,  of  little  quarrels, 
of  dances  at  Christmas  time,  of  walks  at  night,  of 


ROBERT  NICHOLS  141 

dressing  for  dinner,  of  walking  in  the  morning,  of 
meeting  old  friends,  of  sicknesses,  theatres,  Church 
services,  slums,  cricket-matches,  children,  rides  on  a 
tram,  baths  on  a  hot  morning,  sudden  unpleasant 
truth  from  a  friend,  momentary  consciousness  of 
God.  .  .  ." 

That  is  the  vision  vouchsafed  to  the  prose-writer, 
but  the  poet  goes  even  deeper.  Robert  Nichols  only- 
voices  the  general  feeling  of  all  the  war-poets  when 
he  writes : 

Now  that  I  am  ta'en  away, 

And  may  not  see  another  day, 

What  is  it  to  my  eye  appears  ? 

What  sound  rings  in  my  stricken  ears  ? 

Not  even  the  voice  of  any  friend 

Or  eyes  beloved-world-without-end, 

But  scenes  and  sounds  of  the  countryside 

In  far  England  across  the  tide  .  .  . 

The  gorse  upon  the  twilit  down, 

The  English  loam  so  sunset  brown, 

The  bowed  pines  and  the  sheep-bells'  clamour. 

The  wet,  lit  lane  and  the  yellow-hammer. 

The  orchard  and  the  chaffinch  song. 

Only  to  the  Brave  belong. 

And  he  shall  lose  their  joy  for  aye 

If  their  price  he  cannot  pay. 

Who  shall  find  them  dearer  far 

Enriched  by  blood  after  long  war. 

But  in  Fulfilment  he  has  penetrated  even  deeper 
than  the  rest  of  his  school,  and  left  an  imperishable 
memorial  of  the  effect  of  war  upon  one  great  soul : 

Was  there  love  once  ?     I  have  forgotten  her. 

Was  there  grief  once  ?  grief  yet  is  mine. 
Other  loves  I  have,  men  rough,  but  men  who  stir 

More  grief,  more  joy,  than  love  of  thee  and  thine. 


142  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

Faces  cheerful,  full  of  whimsical  mirth, 

Lined  by  the  wind,  burned  by  the  sun  ; 
Bodies  enraptured  by  the  abounding  earth, 

As  whose  children  we  are  brethren  ;  one. 
Was  there  love  once  ?     I  have  forgotten  her. 

Was  there  grief  once  ?  grief  yet  is  mine. 
O  loved,  living,  dying,  heroic  soldier. 

All,  all,  my  joy,  my  grief,  my  love  are  thine  ! 

In  the  description  of  the  actual  fighting  itself  Mr 
Nichols  is  not  so  happy.  Nothing,  not  even  the 
greatness  of  the  occasion  can  make  poetry  out  of 
this  staccato  realism : 

Deafness.     Numbness,     The  loudening  tornado. 

Bullets.     Mud.     Stumbling  and  skating. 

My  voice's  strangled  shout : 

"  Steady  pace,  boys  !  " 

The  still  light.     Gladness. 

"  Look,  sir.     Look  out !  " 

Ha,  ha  !     Bunched  figures  waiting. 

Revolver  levelled  quick  I 

Flick!    FUck! 

Red  as  blood. 

Germans,  Germans. 

Good  !    O  good  ! 

Cool  madness. 

It  is  pleasant  to  turn  from  this  to  his  Sonnet  on 
the  Dead,  where  he  again  joins  hands  with  Rupert 
Brooke  and  all  the  other  poets  of  the  war  who  have 
seen  their  friends  die  before  their  faces,  times  without 
number  : 

They  have  not  gone  from  us.     O  no  !  they  are 
The  inmost  essence  of  each  thing  that  is 

Perfect  for  us  ;  they  flame  in  every  star  ; 
The  trees  are  emerald  with  their  presences. 


ROBERT  NICHOLS  148 

They  are  not  gone  from  us  ;  they  do  not  roam 

The  flow  and  turmoil  of  the  lower  deep, 
But  have  now  made  the  whole  \vide  world  their  home, 

And  in  its  loveliness  themselves  they  steep. 
They  fail  not  ever  ;  theirs  is  the  dium 

Splendour  of  sunny  hill  and  forest  grave  ; 
In  every  rainbow's  glittering  drop  they  burn  ; 

They  dazzle  in  the  massed  clouds'  architecture  ; 
They  chant  on  every  wind,  and  they  return 

In  the  long  roll  of  any  deep  blue  wave. 

It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  Mr  Nichols 
is  a  war-poet  only.  Long  before  the  war,  in  Oxford 
days,  he  was  already  haunted  by  the  spell  of  beauty, 
and  had  answered  the  call. 

In  his  short  introduction  he  quotes  Mark  Liddell 
on  the  nature  of  the  poet,  and  of  what  English  poetry 
consists,  to  defend  his  attitude,  which  is  that  the 
poet  is  after  all  only  one  of  us  :  he  speaks  our  language 
better  than  we  do  merely  because  he  is  more  skilful 
with  it  than  we  are  :  "  Given  a  little  more  sensitive- 
ness to  external  stimuli,  a  little  more  power  of  asso- 
ciating ideas  ...  a  sense  of  rhythm  somewhat  keener 
than  the  average — given  these  things  we  should  be 
poets  too.  ..."  He  warns  us  that  English  poetry  is 
not  a  rhythm  of  sound,  but  a  rhythm  of  ideas  :  he 
who  would  think  of  it  as  a  pleasing  arrangement  of 
vocal  sounds  has  missed  all  chance  of  ever  under- 
standing its  meaning.  There  awaits  him  only  the 
barren  generalities  of  a  foreign  prosody,  tedious, 
pedantic,  fruitless. 

In  other  words,  it  is  the  firm  ground  of  truth  we 
have  to  search  for  in  his  work,  not  a  magic  manipula- 
tion of  iambuses,  spondees,  dactyls,  and  tribrachs. 

In  spite  of  his  warning,  however,  we  find  ourselves 
again  and  again  delighted  at  the  lilt  and  lovely  melody 
of  his  songs  : 


144  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

Kingcups  flare  beside  the  stream, 

That  not  gUdes  now,  but  runs  brawling  ; 
That  wet  roses  are  asteam 

In  the  sun  and  will  be  falling, 
Say  the  chestnut  sheds  his  bloom  ; 

Honey  from  straw  hivings  oozes  ; 
There's  a  nightjar  in  the  coombe  ; 

Venus  nightly  burns,  and  chooses 
Most  to  blaze  above  my  room  ; 

That  the  laggard  'tis  that  loses. 

His  philosophy  is  akin  to  that  of  Wordsworth  : 

First  must  the  spirit  cast  aside 

This  world's  and  next  his  owti  poor  pride 

And  learn  the  universe  to  scan 

More  as  a  flower,  less  as  a  man. 

Occasionally  he  almost  captures  an  Elizabethan 
lightness  and  limpidity  in  his  lyrics,  as  in 

Our  fast-flickering  feet  shall  twinkle, 
And  our  golden  anklets  tinkle, 
While  fair  arms  in  aery  sleeves 
Shiver  as  the  poplar's  leaves. 

Frequently  he  shows  traces  of  a  careful  training  in 
the  school  of  Milton.  We  should  be  inclined  to  place 
that  poet  as  far  the  most  prominent  among  those 
who  have  influenced  Mr  Nichols.  He  has  inherited 
a  splendid  vision  and  developed  an  intense  emotional 
realisation  of  the  meaning  of  beauty.  In  his  war 
poems  he  has  sounded  depths  that  no  other  war- 
poet  has  touched.  He  can  be  realistic  and  grim  when 
occasion  calls  for  it :  he  understands  the  mind  of  the 
soldier  completely,  and  brings  a  sympathetic  humour 
to  the  study  of  the  warrior  temperament.  But  it  is 
in  his  passion  for  natural  scenery  that  we  learn  to 
love  him  best  and  see  him  most  clearly  : 


ROBERT  NICHOLS  145 

So  when  my  dying  eyes  have  loved  the  trees 

Till  with  huge  tears  turned  blind, 

When  the  vague  ears  for  the  last  time  have  hearkened 

To  the  cool  stir  of  the  long  evening  breeze, 

The  blackbird's  tireless  call. 

Having  drunk  deep  of  earth-scent  strong  and  kind. 

Come  then,  O  Death,  and  let  my  day  be  darkened. 

I  shall  have  had  my  aU. 


K 


M 


V 

DORA  SIGERSON 

RS  CLEMENT  SHORTER  was  kiUed  by 
the  war. 


Summer  with  her  pretty  ways  now  is  taking  leave  of  me, 
Slow  the  hng'ring  roses  fall,  softly  sings  the  honey-bee, 
How  can  I  go  back  again  to  the  horrors  of  the  toAvn, 
Where  the  husky  voice  of  war  fiercely  echoes  up  and  down  ? 

Other  women  have  had  to  suffer,  but  most  of  them 
came  through  :  Dora  Sigerson  not  only  did  not  come 
through,  but  she  gave  vent  to  piteous  cries  of  anguish 
which  rise  through  their  pathos  to  heights  of  real 
poetry : 

But,  Gkxi  !  to  dream,  to  wake,  and  dream  again, 
Where  screams  red  war  in  harvesting  dead  men. 
Ah  !  dream  of  home,  of  love,  of  joy,  all  thrilling, 
To  wake  once  more  to  killing,  killing,  killing. 

She  was  obsessed  by  the  horror  of  the  whole  thing : 
naturally  fragile  she  could  not  withstand  the  avalanche 
of  blood  :  she  had  not  the  capacity  that  so  many  of 
us  had  of  becoming  more  and  more  hardened  by  the 
holocaust :  first  there  came  the  inevitable  breakdown 
and  illness  which  she  has  interpreted  for  us  in  un- 
forgettable verse  in  The  Hours  of  Illness : 

How  slow  creeps  time  !     I  hear  the  midnight  chime, 
And  now  late  revellers  prepare  for  sleep  ; 
A  last  gay  voice  rings  in  a  passing  rhyme. 
And  past  my  door  the  anxious  footsteps  creep. 

146 


DORA  SIGERSON  147 

The  little  clocks  from  hidden  places  call 
'Tis  one  o'clock  ;  downstairs  the  big  clock's  bell 
Tolls  deep,  and  then  comes  forth  the  merry  chime, 
Like  laughing  children  calling,  "  All  is  well !  " 

'Tis  two  o'clock  !     Why  in  the  lonesome  room 
This  creak  and  crack,  if  there  be  no  one  here  ? 
Whose  feet  disturb  the  loose  board  of  the  floor  ? 
Whose  secret  presence  fills  the  dark  with  fear  ? 

'Tis  three  o'clock  !     O  God,  when  comes  sweet  rest  ? 
To  sleep,  to  sleep,  within  this  sleeping  house, 
Where  all  could  wake  with  less  fatigue  than  I, 
Where  no  one  stirs  save  some  adventurous  mouse  ! 

'Tis  four  o'clock  !    Death  stands  at  my  bed-head 

In  meditation  deep,  with  hidden  face, 

And  I  alone — a  coward — alone,  afraid. 

Lest  he  from  his  dread  brow  his  shroud  displace. 

'Tis  five  o'clock  !     Within  the  empty  room, 
Threading  their  way,  the  happy  dead  appear. 
More  Uving  than  the  quick  in  this  still  night — 
All  whom  I  loved  or  ever  held  me  dear. 

'Tis  six  o'clock  !     Death  moves  from  my  bed-head. 
Flings  high  the  shroud  from  off  his  hidden  face. 
**  O  gentle  Death  !     O  fair  and  lovely  shade, 
Lift  this  sad  spirit  from  its  dwelling-place  !  " 

The  clock  at  seven  !     Hear  the  milkman  come. 
Loud  clangs  the  gate  ;  the  room  is  chill  and  dark. 
The  maid,  reluctant  rising,  frees  the  door  ; 
A  dog  runs  forth  with  shrill,  offensive  bark. 

The  clock  strikes  eight !     The  curtains  pulled  aside 
Let  in  the  light,  so  cold,  so  bleak,  so  grey. 
From  their  dark  hiding  come  familiar  things, 
And  through  my  Avindow  looks  another  day. 


148  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

There  will  be  few  (how  lucky  they)  who  will  not 
at  once  respond  to  the  feelings  herein  expressed  :  the 
sweet  simplicity  of  it  is  reminiscent  of  Cowper  in  his 
truest  vein.  That  really  is  her  secret :  she  had  a 
purity  of  mind  like  one  of  Shakespeare's  later  heroines  : 
she  sings  as  one  would  expect  Perdita  or  Miranda  to 
sing  had  they  been  gifted  with  tongues  : 

If  by  my  tomb  some  day  you  careless  pass, 
A  moment  grieved  by  coming  on  my  name, 

Ah  !  kneel  awhile  upon  the  tender  grass 

In  some  short  prayer  acquitting  me  of  blame. 

If  I  reached  not  your  pinnacle  of  right, 

Or  fell  below  your  standard  of  desire, 
If  to  my  heart  alone  my  hopes  were  white. 

And  my  soul  built  its  own  celestial  fire, 

Then  let  your  grief,  be  it  a  single  tear, 

Upon  your  cheek  in  tender  sorrow  fall. 
Forget  where  I  did  fail ;  keep  only  dear 

The  deeds  for  which  you  loved  me  over  all. 

There  are  two  famous  dirges  in  our  language  written 
to  be  sung  over  Fidele's  tomb,  but  if  Imogen  could 
have  phrased  it  thus,  in  such  a  manner  would  she 
have  sung  her  swan-song.  Christina  Rossetti  ap- 
proaches most  nearly  among  the  modems  to  this 
spirit :  and  what  is  the  spirit  ?  Simplicity  and 
sincerity  perfectly  commingled  in  a  haunting  musical 
refrain  : 

I  want  to  talk  to  thee  of  many  things 
Or  sit  in  silence  when  the  robin  sings 
His  little  song,  when  comes  the  winter  bleak 
I  want  to  sit  beside  thee,  cheek  by  cheek. 


DORA  SIGERSON  149 

I  want  to  hear  thy  voice  my  name  repeat, 
To  fill  my  heart  with  echoes  ever  sweet ; 
I  want  to  hear  thy  love  come  calling  me, 
I  want  to  seek  and  find  but  thee,  but  thee. 

I  want  to  talk  to  thee  of  little  things 

So  fond,  so  frail,  so  foolish  that  one  clings 

To  keep  them  ours — who  could  but  understand 

A  joy  in  speaking  them,  thus  hand  in  hand 

Beside  the  fire  ;  our  joys,  our  hopes,  our  fears, 
Our  secret  laughter,  or  unchidden  tears ; 
Each  day  old  dreams  come  back  with  beating  wings, 
I  want  to  speak  of  these  forgotten  things. 

I  want  to  feel  thy  arms  around  me  pressed. 
To  hide  my  weeping  eyes  upon  thy  breast ; 
I  want  thy  strength  to  hold  and  comfort  me 
For  all  the  grief  I  had  in  losing  thee. 

Such  a  poem  as  this  really  does  defy  analysis.  It 
would  be  in  some  degree  comparable  with  applying 
the  cold  knife  of  scientific  criticism  to  a  passionate 
love-letter.  These  poignant  heart-cries  are  either  real, 
in  which  case  all  criticism  is  absurd,  or  they  are  false, 
in  which  case  they  are  beneath  criticism  :  one's  only 
object  after  reading  I  Want  to  Talk  to  Thee  is  to  give 
it  to  as  many  friends  as  possible  that  they  may  derive 
from  it  the  same  aesthetic  thrill  that  we  experienced 
when  we  first  chanced  upon  it. 

No  wonder  Meredith,  Swinburne,  Francis  Thomp- 
son, Theodore  Watts-Dunton,  Masefield,  Katharine 
Tynan,  Lascelles  Abercrombie,  and  most  of  the  other 
poets  of  our  own  and  the  last  generation  unite  in  hailing 
her  as  one  of  themselves.  For  gentleness  and  delicacy 
she  o'ertops  them  all. 


150  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

Bring  to  me  white  roses,  roses,  pinks,  and  lavender, 
Sweet  stock  and  gillyflowers,  poppies  mauve  and  red. 
Bee-flowers  and  mignonette,  with  blue  forget-me-not— 
I  would  make  a  coverlet  for  my  narrow  bed. 

Bring  me  no  silken  cloth,  velvet  sheen  or  satin  shine, 

Gossamer  of  woven  lace,  gold  and  silver  thread. 

Purple  deep  and  dove,  and  grey,  through  my  idle  fingers 

fall. 
Bidding  me  in  patient  hours  make  a  patchwork  spread. 

Since  I  must  go  forth  alone,  far  beyond  the  roof-tree's 

shade. 
Out  into  the  open  soon  lonely  there  to  lie, 
What  want  I  of  silken  cloth  woven  by  the  hands  of  men  ? 
Time  would  soon  despoil  me  there  as  he  passed  me  by. 

Bring  to  me  white  roses  then,  roses,  pinks,  and  lavender, 
Sweet  stock  and  gillyflowers,  poppies  gold  and  red, 
Bee-flowers  and  mignonette  and  blue  forget-me-not, 
So  I  have  a  coverlet  for  my  narrow  bed. 

Are  not  these  the  very  accents  of  the  innocent 
Ophelia  ?  It  is  almost  uncanny  how  often  Dora 
Sigerson  merges  herself  into  a  Shakespearean  heroine. 
But  the  figure  I  conjure  up  when  I  think  of  her  is 
not  Shakespearean  :  I  see  a  lonely,  tragic  figure, 
unable  to  find  consolation  even  among  those  who 
loved  her  most  dearly,  broken  in  pieces  by  the 
savagery  of  war  and  the  wreck  of  her  ambitions  for 
her  own  country.  To  me  The  Comforters  is  her  finest 
achievement  because  it  is  her  cry  from  the  cross ; 
so  surcharged  is  it  with  emotion,  that  it  is  difficult  to 
read  it  dry-eyed.  It  is  the  hymn  for  all  time  for  the 
sorrowful  and  the  broken-hearted  : 

When  I  crept  over  the  hill,  broken  with  tears, 

When  I  crouched  down  on  the  grass,  dumb  in  despair, 


DORA  SIGERSON  161 

I  heard  the  soft  croon  of  the  wind  bend  to  my  ears, 
I  felt  the  hght  kiss  of  the  wind  touching  my  hair. 

When  I  stood  lone  on  the  height  my  sorrow  did  speak, 
As  I  went  down  the  hill,  I  cried  and  I  cried, 

The  soft  little  hands  of  the  rain  stroking  my  cheek, 
The  kind  little  feet  of  the  rain  ran  by  my  side. 

When  I  went  to  thy  grave,  broken  with  tears, 

When  I  crouched  down  in  the  grass,  dumb  in  despair, 

I  heard  the  sweet  croon  of  the  wind  soft  in  my  ears, 
I  felt  the  kind  lips  of  the  wind  touching  my  hair. 

When  I  stood  lone  by  thy  cross,  sorrow  did  speak. 

When  I  went  down  the  long  hill,  I  cried  and  I  cried. 
The  soft  little  hands  of  the  rain  stroked  my  pale  cheek, 

The  kind  little  feet  of  the  rain  ran  by  my  side. 

No  anthology  of  English  poetry  in  the  future  will 
be  complete  without  this  priceless,  flawless  gem. 
Whatever  else  of  hers  is  imperfect,  this  at  any  rate 
is  as  nearly  perfect  as  any  poem  can  be.  There  can 
be  but  few  written  in  the  last  twenty  years  worthy 
to  be  ranged  with  it.  On  the  Other  Side  is  scarcely 
less  memorable. 

What  will  you  do  through  the  waiting  days, 

What  will  my  darling  do  ? 
Will  you  sleep,  or  wander  in  those  strange  ways 

Until  I  can  come  to  you  ? 

Do  you  cry  at  the  door  as  I  cry  here. 

Death's  door  that  lies  between  ? 
Do  you  plead  in  vain  for  my  love,  my  dear, 

As  you  stand  by  my  side  unseen  ? 

Who  will  comfort  your  difficult  ways 

That  were  hard  to  understand. 
When  I  who  knew  you  through  all  your  days. 

Can  give  you  no  helping  hand  ? 


152         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

When  I  who  loved  you  no  word  can  speak, 

Though  your  ghost  should  cry  to  me, 
Can  give  no  help,  though  my  heart  should  break 

At  the  thought  of  your  agony. 

You  were  shy  of  strangers — and  who  will  come 

As  you  stand  there  lone  and  new. 
Through  the  long  years  when  my  hps  are  dumb 

What  will  my  darling  do  ? 

But  it  is  the  war  that  takes  her  and  breaks  her, 
and  it  is  on  a  note  of  war  that  one  is  forced  to  take 
one's  leave  of  her  : 

God,  the  earth  shakes  with  it ! 
Down  in  the  hellish  pit. 
Where  the  red  river  ran. 
Hatred  of  man  to  man  ; 
Maddened  they  rush  to  kill, 
That  but  their  single  will ; 
Strangle  or  bayonet  him  ! 
Trample  him  life  and  limb 
Into  the  awful  mire  ; 
Break  him  with  knife  or  fire  I 
So  that  we  know  he  he 
Dead  to  the  smiling  sky. 
And  in  a  thousand  years 
It  will  be  all  the  same. 
Which  of  us  was  to  blame  ? 
What  will  it  matter  then  ? 
Over  the  sleeping  men 
Grass  will  so  softly  grow 
No  one  would  ever  know 
Of  the  dark  crimson  stain. 
Of  all  the  hate  and  pain 
That  once  had  fearful  birth 
In  the  black  secret  earth. 
Ah  I  in  a  thousand  years 
Time  will  forget  our  tears. 


DORA  SIGERSON  158 

Babes  in  their  golden  hour 
Seeking  some  hidden  flower 
Will,  in  those  years  afar, 
Play  on  the  fields  of  war ; 
And  as  they  laughing  roam 
Mothers  will  call  them  home  ; 
Laden  with  fruit  or  flower 
Run  they  at  twilight  hour  .  .  . 
Over  the  meadow  grass 
Slow  the  moon's  shadows  pass. 
Only  the  chirp  of  bird 
From  the  deep  hedge  is  heard. 
This  in  a  thousand  years 
Payment  of  blood  and  tears, 
Horrors  we  dare  not  name, 
It  will  be  all  the  same. 
What  is  the  value  then 
To  all  those  sleeping  men  ? 
It  will  be  all  the  same, 
Passion  and  grief  and  blame. 
This  in  the  years  to  be, 
My  God,  the  tragedy  ! 

Here  we  see  Rachel  weeping  for  her  children, 
refusing  to  be  comforted  in  very  truth  :  forgotten  or 
dismissed  is  the  glamour  :  only  the  gnawing  horror 
of  pain  and  separation  remains  behind  :  if  it  is  the 
test  of  genius  that  it  feels  more  acutely  than  the 
rest  of  us,  Dora  Sigerson  must  stand  at  the  head  of 
the  geniuses  of  our  time. 


VI 

A  HUNDRED  AND  SEVENTY 
CHINESE  POEMS 

TO  read  Mr  Arthur  Waley's  translation  of 
ancient  Chinese  poetry  after  seeing  some  such 
ridiculous  presentation  of  the  East  as  we  get 
in  Mr  Wu  and  The  Chinese  Puzzle  is  to  escape  from 
inept,  ludicrous  falsities  into  the  clear  light  of  day. 

"  Those  who  wish  to  assure  themselves  that  they 
will  lose  nothing  by  ignoring  Chinese  literature,  often 
ask  the  question  :  '  Have  the  Chinese  a  Homer,  an 
^schylus,  a  Shakespeare  or  Tolstoy  ?  '  The  answer 
must  be  that  China  has  no  epic  and  no  dramatic 
literature  of  importance.  The  novel  exists  and  has 
merits,  but  never  became  the  instrument  of  great 
writers.  ...  In  mind,  as  in  body,  the  Chinese  were 
for  the  most  part  torpid  mainlanders.  Their  thoughts 
set  out  on  no  strange  quests  and  adventures,  just  as 
their  ships  discovered  no  new  continents.  To  most 
Europeans  the  momentary  flash  of  Athenian  question- 
ing will  seem  worth  more  than  all  the  centuries  of 
Chinese  assent.  Yet  we  must  recognise  that  fop 
thousands  of  years  the  Chinese  maintained  a  level  of 
rationaUty  and  tolerance  that  the  West  might  well 
envy.  ...  In  the  poems  of  Po  Chii-i  no  close  reasoning 
or  philosophic  subtlety  will  be  discovered  ;  but  a 
power  of  candid  reflection  and  self-analysis  which 
has  not  been  rivalled  in  the  West. 

"  Turning  from  thought  to  emotion,  the  most  con- 
spicuous feature  of  European  poetry  is  its  preoccupa- 

154 


CHINESE  POETRY  155 

tion  with  love.  .  .  .  The  Chinese  poet  has  a  tendency 
different,  but  analogous.  He  recommends  himself  not 
as  a  lover,  but  as  a  friend.  He  poses  as  a  person  of 
infinite  leisure  and  free  from  worldly  ambitions.  He 
would  have  us  think  of  him  as  a  boon  companion, 
a  great  drinker  of  wine,  who  will  not  disgrace  a  social 
gathering  by  quitting  it  sober.  To  the  European 
poet  the  relation  between  man  and  woman  is  a  thing 
of  supreme  importance  and  mystery.  To  the  Chinese 
it  is  something  commonplace,  obvious — a  need  of  the 
body,  not  a  satisfaction  of  the  emo/ioTW.  .  .  .  We  idealise 
love  at  the  expense  of  friendship,  and  so  place  too 
heavy  a  burden  on  the  relation  of  man  and  woman. 
The  Chinese  erred  in  the  opposite  direction,  regarding 
their  wives  and  concubines  simply  as  instruments  of 
procreation.  For  sympathy  and  intellectual  com- 
panionship they  looked  only  to  their  friends  .  .  .  half 
the  poems  in  the  Chinese  language  are  poems  of 
parting  or  separation.  .  .  .  The  poet  usually  passed 
through  three  stages  of  existence.  In  the  first  we  find 
him  with  his  friends  at  the  capital,  drinking,  writing, 
and  discussing  :  .  .  .  next,  having  failed  to  curry 
favour  with  the  Court,  he  is  exiled  :  .  .  .  finally,  having 
scraped  together  enough  money  to  buy  husbands  for 
his  daughters,  he  retires  to  a  small  estate.  .  .  . 

"  In  the  first  four  centuries  of  our  era  the  poetess 
flourished  :  her  theme  varies  little  :  she  is  almost 
always  a  '  rejected  wife  '  .  .  .  there  was  no  place  for 
unmarried  women  in  the  Chinese  social  system  :  so 
the  moment  which  produced  such  poems  was  one  of 
supreme  tragedy  in  a  woman's  life." 

Thus  far  Mr  Waley  in  a  preface  which  is  a  most 
masterly  precis  of  the  salient  features  of  a  literature 
which  has  hitherto  been  a  sealed  book  to  most  of  us. 
To  turn  for  a  moment  to  technique.     The  expedients 


166  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

used  by  the  Chinese  before  the  sixth  century  were 
rhyme  and  length  of  line.  A  third  element  was 
"  tone."  The  rhyme  was  a  vowel  assonance  :  words 
in  different  consonants  rhjnned  so  long  as  the  vowel- 
sound  was  exactly  the  same.  Mr  Waley  aims  at 
literal  translation,  which  is  bound  to  be  to  some 
extent  rhythmical,  for  the  rhythm  of  the  original 
always  obtrudes  itself.  On  the  other  hand,  he  does 
not  attempt  rhyme  because  of  the  impossibility  of 
rendering  adequately  any  notion  of  Chinese  rhyming  : 
nor  does  he  employ  "  blank  verse "  because  that 
would  demand  variation  of  pause,  whereas  in  Chinese 
the  stop  always  comes  at  the  end  of  the  couplet. 

We  English  might  well  desire  to  take  a  leaf  out  of 
their  book  if  the  following  is  typical  of  Chinese  prose  : 

"  The  girl  next  door  would  be  too  tall  if  an  inch 
were  added  to  her  height,  and  too  short  if  an  inch 
were  taken  away.  Another  grain  of  powder  would 
make  her  too  pale ;  another  touch  of  rouge  would 
make  her  too  red.  Her  eyebrows  are  like  the  plumage 
of  the  kingfisher,  her  flesh  is  like  snow.  Her  waist 
is  like  a  roll  of  new  silk,  her  teeth  are  like  little  shells. 
A  single  one  of  her  smiles  would  perturb  the  whole 
city  of  Yang  and  derange  the  suburb  of  Hsia-ts'ai." 

That  was  written  in  the  third  century  before  Christ. 
General  Su  Wu's  poem  To  his  Wife  might  have  been 
written  during  the  Great  War  instead  of  two  thousand 
years : 

Since  our  hair  was  plaited  and  we  became  man  and  wife 
The  love  between  us  was  never  broken  by  doubt. 
So  let  us  be  merry  this  night  together, 
Feasting  and  playing  while  the  good  time  lasts. 

I  suddenly  remember  the  distance  that  I  must  travel 
I  spring  from  bed  and  look  out  to  see  the  time. 


CHINESE  POETRY  157 

The  stars  and  planets  are  all  grown  dim  in  the  sky  ; 
Long,  long  is  the  road  ;  I  cannot  stay. 
I  am  going  on  service,  away  to  the  battle-ground. 
And  I  do  not  know  when  I  shall  come  back. 
I  hold  your  hand  with  only  a  deep  sigh  ; 
Afterwards,  tears — in  the  days  when  we  are  parted. 
With  all  your  might  enjoy  the  spring  flowers, 
But  do  not  forget  the  time  of  our  love  and  pride. 
Know  that  if  I  live,  I  w^ill  come  back  again. 
And  if  I  die,  we  will  go  on  thinking  of  each  other. 

The  perfect  simplicity  both  of  the  diction  and  the 
emotion  here  is  a  delicious  change  from  the  euphuistic 
epigrams  that  we  are  led  to  believe  from  The  Chinese 
Puzzle  are  the  staple  diet  of  the  Chinese  in  their  most 
ordinary  conversation. 

The  wife's  reply  is  on  the  same  high  level  : 

The  good  time  will  never  come  back  again  : 

In  a  moment, — our  parting  will  be  over. 

Anxiously — we  halt  at  the  roadside. 

Hesitating — we  embrace  where  the  fields  begin.  .  .  . 

From  now  onwards — long  must  be  our  parting, 

So  let  us  stop  again  for  a  little  while. 

I  wish  I  could  ride  on  the  wings  of  the  morning  wind 

And  go  with  you  right  to  your  journey's  end. 

Another  husband,  Ch'in  Chia,  writes  to  his  absent 
wife  in  these  terms  : 

When  I  think  of  all  the  things  you  have  done  for  me, 
How  ashamed  I  am  to  have  done  so  little  for  you ! 
Although  I  know  that  it  is  a  poor  return, 
All  I  can  give  you  is  this  description  of  my  feelings. 

It  is  obvious  that  lucidity  of  this  sort  is  a  happy 
medium  for  satire.  In  the  year  a.d.  250  we  find 
Ch'eng  Hsiao  writing  on  the  horror  of  paying  calls 
in  August ; 


158  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

The  conversation  does  not  end  quickly  : 

Prattling  and  babbling,  what  a  lot  he  says ! 

Only  when  one  is  almost  dead  with  fatigue 

He  asks  at  last  if  one  isn't  finding  him  tiring. 

(One's  arm  is  almost  in  half  with  continual  fanning  : 

The  sweat  is  pouring  down  one's  neck  in  streams.) 

Do  not  say  that  this  is  a  small  matter  : 

I  consider  the  practice  a  blot  on  our  social  life. 

I  therefore  caution  all  wise  men 

That  August  visitors  should  not  be  admitted. 

Occasionally  there  is  an  attempt  to  formulate  some 
ethical  point  as  in  T'ao  Ch'ien's  : 

That  when  the  body  decays  Fame  should  also  go 
Is  a  thought  unendurable,  burning  the  heart. 
Let  us  strive  and  labour  while  yet  we  may 
To  do  some  deed  that  men  will  praise. 
Wine  may  in  truth  dispel  our  sorrow, 
But  how  compare  it  with  lasting  Fame  ? 

Or  again  : 

Gk)d  can  only  set  in  motion  : 

He  cannot  control  the  things  he  has  made.  .  .  . 

You  had  better  go  where  Fate  leads — 

Drift  on  the  stream  of  Infinite  Flux, 

Without  joy,  without  fear  : 

When  you  must  go — ^then  go, 

And  make  as  little  fuss  as  you  can. 

As  an  example  of  how  the  Chinese  spend  their 
time  T'ao  Ch'ien  may  again  be  quoted : 

In  the  month  of  June  the  grass  grows  high 

And  round  my  cottage  thick-leaved  branches  sway. 

There  is  not  a  bird  but  delights  in  the  place  where  it  rests  : 

And  I  too — love  my  thatched  cottage. 

I  have  done  my  ploughing  : 

I  have  sown  my  seed. 


CHINESE  POETRY  159 

Again  I  have  time  to  sit  and  read  my  books. 

In  the  narrow  lane  there  are  no  deep  ruts  : 

Often  my  friends'  carriages  turn  back. 

In  high  spirits  I  pour  out  my  spring  wine 

And  pluck  the  lettuce  growing  in  my  garden. 

A  gentle  rain  comes  stealing  up  from  the  east 

And  a  sweet  wind  bears  it  company. 

My  thoughts  float  idly  over  the  story  of  King  Chou ; 

My  eyes  wander  over  the  pictures  of  Hills  and  Seas. 

At  a  single  glance  I  survey  the  whole  Universe. 

He  will  never  be  happy,  whom  such  pleasures  fail  to  please  ! 

It  seems  queer  that  such  a  race,  the  embodiment 
of  quiet  content,  should  have  foimd  it  necessary  to 
have  recourse  to  opium  :  the  pleasures  of  lotus-eating 
would  seem  to  come  naturally  without  artificial 
narcotic. 

The  loneliness  that  is  so  often  accentuated  in 
Chinese  poetry  finds  excellent  expression  in  Winter 
Night : 

My  bed  is  so  empty  that  I  keep  on  waking  up  : 
As  the  cold  increases,  the  night- wind  begins  to  blow. 
It  rustles  the  curtains,  making  a  noise  like  the  sea  : 
Oh  that  those  were  waves  which  could  carry  me  back  to 
you  ! 

And  in  People  Hide  their  Love  Wu-Ti  hits  a  note  that 
will  awaken  a  sympathetic  echo  in  many  a  modern 
breast : 

Who  says 

That  it's  by  my  desire, 

This  separation,  this  living  so  far  from  you  ? 

My  dress  still  smells  of  the  lavender  you  gave  : 

My  hand  still  holds  the  letter  that  you  sent. 

Round  my  waist  I  wear  a  double  sash  : 

I  dream  that  it  binds  us  both  with  a  same-heart  knot. 

Did  not  you  know  that  people  hide  their  love, 

Like  a  flower  that  seems  too  precious  to  be  picked  ? 


160  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

Su  Tung-p'o  (a.d.  103fr-1101),  On  the  Birth  of  His 
Son,  comes  into  line  with  the  ultra-modems  in  his 
irony : 

Families,  when  a  child  is  born 

Want  it  to  be  intelligent. 

I,  through  intelligence, 

Having  wrecked  my  whole  life. 

Only  hope  the  baby  will  prove 

Ignorant  and  stupid. 

Then  he  will  crown  a  tranquil  life 

By  becoming  a  Cabinet  Minister. 

For  the  pleasure  of  unearthing  so  rare  a  gem  as 
this  it  would  be  worth  while  wading  through  ten 
thousand  uninteresting  verses. 

But  the  great  poet  of  China  is  Po  Chu-i  (a.d.  772- 
846) :  he  held  many  official  posts  from  time  to  time, 
including  that  of  assistant  secretary  to  the  Princes' 
tutor,  but  he  was  banished  and  recalled  to  become 
a  second-class  assistant  secretary  and  ultimately 
Governor  of  Soochow.  The  most  striking  feature  of 
his  work  is  its  verbal  simplicity :  he  followed  Con- 
fucius in  regarding  art  solely  as  a  method  of  convey- 
ing instruction  :  his  satires  are  just  moral  tales  in 
verse  and  have  none  of  the  wit  we  should  expect, 
but  much  true  poetry.  He  enjoyed  a  very  wide 
contemporary  popularity  which  lasted  for  some  con- 
siderable time  after  his  death. 

One  of  his  most  pleasing  traits  is  his  love  of 
children : 

When  1  was  almost  forty 

I  had  a  daughter  whose  name  was  Golden  Bells. 

Now  it  is  just  a  year  since  she  was  born  ; 

She  is  learning  to  sit  and  cannot  yet  talk. 

Ashamed, — ^to  find  that  I  have  not  a  sage's  heart : 

I  cannot  resist  vulgar  thoughts  and  feelings. 


CHINESE  POETRY  161 

Henceforward  I  am  tied  to  things  outside  myself : 
My  only  reward, — the  pleasure  I  am  getting  now. 
If  I  am  spared  the  grief  of  her  dying  young, 
Then  I  shall  have  the  trouble  of  getting  her  married. 
My  plan  for  retiring  and  going  back  to  the  hills 
Must  now  be  postponed  for  fifteen  years  ! 

Unfortunately  for  him  "  Golden  Bells "  did  die 
young  : 

Ruined  and  ill, — a  man  of  two  score  ; 
Pretty  and  guileless, — a  girl  of  three. 
Not  a  boy, — but  still  better  than  nothing  : 
To  soothe  one's  feeling, — from  time  to  time  a  kiss  ! 
There  came  a  day, — they  suddenly  took  her  from  me  ; 
Her  soul's  shadow  wandered  I  know  not  where. 
And  when  I  remember  how  just  at  the  time  she  died 
She  lisped  strange  sounds,  beginning  to  learn  to  talk, 
Then  I  know  that  the  ties  of  flesh  and  blood 

Only  bind  us  to  a  load  of  grief  and  sorrow. 
At  last,  by  thinking  of  the  time  before  she  was  born, 
By  thought  and  reason  I  drove  the  pain  away. 
Since  my  heart  forgot  her,  many  days  have  passed 
And  three  times  winter  has  changed  to  spring. 
This  morning,  for  a  little,  the  old  grief  came  back, 
Because,  on  the  road,  I  met  her  foster-nurse. 

How  much  more  poignantly  effective  the  man's 
sorrow  stands  out  because  of  its  lack  of  ornament 
and  all  the  trappings  of  conventional  elegiac  poetry. 
It  is  a  cry  wrung  straight  from  the  heart,  naked  and 
pure. 

The  story  of  The  Old  Man  loith  the  Broken  Arm 
presents  a  naive  attitude  to  warfare  which  is  singularly 
foreign  to  our  own  : 

In  the  depth  of  the  night  not  daring  to  let  any  one  know 
I  secretly  took  a  huge  stone  and  dashed  it  against  my  arm. 
For  dramng  the  bow  and  waving  the  banner  now  whoUy 
xm&tj 

L 


162  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

I  knew  henceforward  I  should  not  be  sent  to  fight  in 

Yun-nan.  .  .  . 
My  arm — broken  ever  since ;  it  was  sixty  years  ago. 
One  limb,  although  destroyed, — whole  body  safe ! 
But  even  now  on  winter  nights  when  the  wind  and  rain 

blow 
From  evening  on  till  day's  dawn  I  cannot  sleep  for  pain. 
Not  sleeping  for  pain 
Is  a  small  thing  to  bear, 
Compared  with  the  joy  of  being  alive  when  all  the  rest 

are  dead. 

There  is  a  ring  in  Madly  Singing  in  the  Mountains 
which  would  have  endeared  Po-Chii-i  to  Hazlitt : 

There  is  no  one  among  men  that  has  not  a  special  failing  : 

And  my  failing  consists  in  writing  verses. 

I  have  broken  away  from  the  thousand  ties  of  life  : 

But  this  infirmity  still  remains  behind. 

Each  time  that  I  look  at  a  fine  landscape, 

Each  time  that  I  meet  a  loved  friend, 

I  raise  my  voice  and  recite  a  stanza  of  poetry 

And  am  glad  as  though  a  God  had  crossed  my  path. 

He  is  candidly  sceptical  about  a  philosophical  point 
that  has  bothered  many  men  before  and  since  the 
days  of  Job  : 

I  have  heard  a  saying  *'  He  that  has  an  upright  heart 
Shall  walk  scatheless  through  the  lands  of  Man  and  Mo." 
How  can  I  believe  that  since  the  world  began 
In  every  shipwreck  none  have  drowned  but  rogues  ? 

Again  he  comes  very  near  the  spirit  of  the  author 
of  Ecclesiastes  in  this  poem  : 

Ever  since  the  time  when  I  was  a  lusty  boy 

Down  till  now  when  I  am  ill  and  old. 

The  things  I  have  cared  for  have  been  different  at  different 

times, 
But  my  being  btisy,  thai  has  never  changed. 


CHINESE  POETRY  168 

Then  on  the  shore, — building  sand-pagodas  ; 
Now,  at  Court,  covered  with  tinkUng  jade. 
This  and  that, — equally  childish  games, 
Things  whose  substance  pass  in  a  moment  of  time  ! 
While  the  hands  are  busy,  the  heart  cannot  understand  ; 
When  there  are  no  Scriptures,  then  Doctrine  is  sound. 
Even  should  one  zealously  strive  to  learn  the  Way, 
That  very  striving  will  make  one's  error  more. 

It  would  be  hard  to  name  any  poem  in  our  own 
language  which  contains  more  food  for  thought  in  less 
space,  or  one  more  compactly,  neatly,  and  rhythmically 
expressed. 

This  succinctness  is  one  of  his  most  excellent 
charms.  On  Being  Sixty  is  a  variant  on  the  Seven 
Ages  of  Man  : 

Between  thirty  and  forty,  one  is  distracted  by  the  Five 

Lusts  ; 
Between  seventy  and  eighty,  one  is  a  prey  to  a  hundred 

diseases. 
But  from  fifty  to  sixty  one  is  free  from  all  ills  ; 
Calm  and  still — the  heart  enjoys  rest. 
I  have  put  behind  me  Love  and  Greed  ;  I  have  done  with 

Profit  and  Fame ; 
I  am  still  short  of  illness  and  decay  and  far  from  decrepit 

age. 
Strength  of  limb  I  still  possess  to  seek  the  rivers  and  hills  ; 
Still  my  heart  has  spirit  enough  to  listen  to  flutes  and 

strings. 
At  leisure  I  open  new  wine  and  taste  several  cups ; 
Drunken  I  recall  old  poems  and  sing  a  whole  volume. 

The  candour  of  this  is  as  refreshing  as  the  point  of 
view  is  novel.  And  to  an  Englishman  it  is  amazing 
to  find  the  Oriental  so  forthright  and  positive  in  his 
statements.  He  writes,  to  our  astonishment,  not 
vaguely  and  slackly,  but  with  his  eye  on  the  object, 


1«4  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

meticulously  accurate  over  details  :  listen  to  his  last 
poem : 

They  have  put  my  bed  beside  the  unpainted  screen  ; 
They  have  shifted  my  stove  in  front  of  the  blue  curtain. 
I  listen  to  my  grandchildren,  reading  me  a  book  ; 
I  watch  the  servants,  heating  up  my  soup. 
With  rapid  pencil  I  answer  the  poems  of  friends  ; 
I  feel  in  my  pockets  and  pull  out  medicine-money. 
When  this  superintendence  of  trifling  affairs  is  done, 
I  he  back  on  my  pillows  and  sleep  with  my  face  to  the 
South. 

I  have,  I  think,  quoted  enough  to  prove  that 
Chinese  poetry  cannot  be  neglected  by  any  lovers  of 
the  simple,  the  true,  the  clear-cut  elementary  prin- 
ciples of  life.  These  poets  are  all  essentially  modem 
in  their  outlook  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  many 
of  them  lived  thousands  of  years  ago,  and  that 
all  of  them  belong  to  a  civilization  as  remote  from 
ours  as  it  is  possible  to  imagine.  But  love,  friend- 
ship, solitude,  and  grief  are  not  of  any  one  time ; 
their  expression  is  of  eternal  interest,  and  it  is  because 
these  Chinese  poets  elected  to  write  of  the  things  that 
lie  always  nearest  to  the  human  heart  that  they 
are  never  likely  to  lose  their  charm.  Mr  Waley  has 
made  England  permanently  his  debtor  for  introducing 
them  to  us  in  our  own  language. 


PART  III 
BOOKS  IN  GENERAL 


I 

EMINENT  VICTORIANS 

1YTT0N  STRACHEY,  the  author  of  Eminent 
Victorians,  is  not  to  be  confused  with  St  Loe 
^  Strachey,  the  editor  of  The  Spectator  :  he  is 
as  much  Hke  him  as  hqueur  brandy  is  Hke  tea,  as  the 
reader  will  discover  from  the  short  foreword  with 
which  he  prefaces  his  first  essay  in  biography. 

"  The  history  of  the  Victorian  Age,"  he  begins, 
"  will  never  be  written  :  we  know  too  much  about  it. 
For  ignorance  is  the  first  requisite  of  the  historian- 
ignorance,  which  simplifies  and  clarifies,  which  selects 
and  omits,  with  a  placid  perfection  unattainable  by 
the  highest  art.  ...  It  is  not  by  the  direct  method 
of  a  scrupulous  narration  that  the  explorer  of  the  past 
can  hope  to  depict  that  singular  epoch.  ...  It  has  been 
my  purpose  to  illustrate  rather  than  to  explain.  .  .  . 
In  the  lives  of  an  ecclesiastic,  an  educational  authority, 
a  woman  of  action,  and  a  man  of  adventure,  I  have 
sought  to  examine  and  elucidate  certain  fragments  of 
the  truth  which  took  my  fancy  and  lay  to  my  hand. 
.  .  .  The  art  of  biography  seems  to  have  fallen  on 
evil  times  in  England  :  ...  we  do  not  reflect  that  it  is 
perhaps  as  difficult  to  write  a  good  life  as  to  live  one. 
Those  two  fat  volumes,  with  which  it  is  our  custom 
to  commemorate  the  dead — who  does  not  know  them, 
with  their  ill-digested  masses  of  material,  their  slip- 
shod style,  their  tone  of  tedious  panegyric,  their 
lamentable  lack  of  selection,  of  detachment,  of  design  ? 
.  .  .  What  I  have  aimed  at  in  this  book  is  to  lay  bare 

167 


168         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

the  facts  of  some  cases,  as  I  understand  them,  dis- 
passionately, impartially,  and  without  ulterior  inten- 
tions. To  quote  the  words  of  a  master — '  Je  n'impose 
rien  ;   je  ne  propose  rien  :   j'expose.'  " 

There  is  a  "  bite "  about  these  remarks  which 
prepares  us  for  a  very  definitfe  ulterior  intention  : 
whatever  else  INIr  Strachey  does  not  do  he  certainly 
means  to  lacerate  an  age  on  which,  one  would  have 
thought,  enough  scorn  had  been  heaped  since  the 
nineties.  Bitterly  ironical,  he  portrays  the  lives  of 
Cardinal  Manning,  Florence  Nightingale,  Dr  Arnold, 
and  General  Gordon  from  a  most  peculiar  and  highly 
individual  angle  for  his  own  very  definite  purposes. 
It  is  as  an  amusing  example  of  what  perverted  clever- 
ness can  do  that  I  would  recommend  this  book.  In 
the  initial  essay  (which  is  also  the  longest)  on  Manning 
I  was  not  at  first  interested  :  it  is  said  to  be  the  best. 
For  the  late  R.  H.  Benson  and  the  living  R.  A.  Knox  it 
would  provide  very  great  attraction,  but  most  of  us 
are  not  deeply  concerned  in  the  struggles  which  take 
place  in  the  minds  of  men  who  begin  life  as  members 
of  the  Established  Church  and  ultimately  veer  round 
to  Rome.  It  is  like  reading  of  sportsmen  who  played 
"  Soccer "  at  school,  and  later  foimd  "  Rugger  " 
the  better  game.  So  long  as  a  man  is  enthusias- 
tically a  lover  of  games,  or  is  possessed  of  a  deeply 
religious  sense,  that  is  all  that  the  majority  of  us 
worry  our  heads  about.  Sectarianism  or  partisanship 
of  this  sort  seems  a  rather  stupid  splitting  of  hairs, 
and  long  arguments  about  it  "  much  ado  about 
nothing." 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  entertaining  to  read  of 
young  men  who  are  impelled  with  the  sort  of  ardour 
which  drives  normal  youths  to  haunt  music-halls 
and  fall  in  love  with  actresses  to  form  a  romantic 


EMINENT  VICTORIANS  169 

attachment    with   the   Deity   and   find    an    intense 
interest  in  the  states  of  their  own  souls. 

It  is  refreshing  to  view  the  lives  of  Froude,  New- 
man, and  Manning  through  the  eyes  of  a  sceptic  : 
it  is  better  than  reading  Gibbon  on  Christianity  :  the 
way  in  which  Manning  made  his  spiritual  side  toe  the 
line  to  forward  his  temporal  ambitions  is  inimitably 
suggested  in  this  most  typical  passage : 

"  In  such  a  situation  the  voice  of  self-abnegation 
must  needs  grow  still  and  small  indeed.  Yet  it  spoke 
on,  for  it  was  one  of  the  paradoxes  in  Manning's  soul 
that  that  voice  was  never  silent.  Whatever  else  he 
was,  he  was  not  unscrupulous.  Rather,  his  scruples 
deepened  with  his  desires  :  and  he  could  satisfy  his 
most  exorbitant  ambitions  in  a  profundity  of  self- 
abasement.  And  so  now  he  vowed  to  Heaven  that 
he  would  seek  nothing — ^no,  not  by  the  lifting  of  a 
finger  or  the  speaking  of  a  word.  But,  if  something 
came  to  him — ?  He  had  vowed  not  to  seek  ;  he  had 
not  vowed  not  to  take.  Might  it  not  be  his  plain  duty 
to  take  ?     Might  it  not  be  the  will  of  God  ?  " 

Equally  deft  are  the  strokes  with  which  Newman's 
characteristics  are  limned : 

"  When  he  had  left  the-  Church  of  F/Ugland  he  was 
its  most  distinguished,  its  most  revered  member, 
whose  words,  however  strange,  were  listened  to  with 
a  profound  attention,  and  whose  opinions,  however 
dubious,  were  followed  in  all  their  fluctuations  mth 
an  eager  and  indeed  a  trembling  respect.  He  entered 
the  Church  of  Rome,  and  found  himself  forthwith  an 
unimportant  man.  He  was  received  at  the  Papal 
Court  with  a  politeness  which  only  faintly  concealed 
a  total  lack  of  interest  and  imderstanding.    His  deli- 


170  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

cate  mind,  with  its  refinements,  its  hesitations,  its 
complexities — ^his  soft,  spectacled,  Oxford  manner, 
with  its  half-effeminate  diffidence — such  things  were 
ill-calculated  to  impress  a  throng  of  busy  Cardinals 
and  Bishops,  whose  days  were  spent  amid  the  practical 
details  of  ecclesiastical  organisation,  the  long-drawn 
involutions  of  papal  diplomacy,  and  the  delicious 
bickerings  of  personal  intrigue.  And  when,  at  last, 
he  did  succeed  in  making  some  impression  upon  these 
surroundings,  it  was  no  better ;  it  was  worse.  An 
imeasy  suspicion  gradually  arose ;  it  began  to  dawn 
upon  the  Roman  authorities  that  Dr  Newman  was 
a  man  of  ideas.  Was  it  possible  that  Dr.  Newman 
did  not  understand  that  ideas  in  Rome  were,  to  say 
the  least  of  it,  out  of  place  ?  " 

Mr  Strachey's  opinion  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  as 
may  be  guessed,  is  not  high.  But  his  ironic  attacks 
are  far  more  effective  than  the  bludgeon  hatred  of 
(Jeorge  Borrow.  He  is,  at  any  rate,  logical  in  his 
disdain.  We  are  shown  Newman  as  a  thoroughbred 
harnessed  to  a  four-wheeled  cab  and  being  used  as 
a  pawn  in  a  political  game.  Not  only  was  he  a  thorn 
in  Manning's  path  to  be  plucked  and  destroyed,  but 
Charles  Kingsley  attacked  his  good  faith  and  drew 
from  him  the  world-famous  Apologia  pro  Vita  SuOt 
of  which  Mr  Strachey  writes  : 

"  The  success  of  the  book,  with  its  transparent 
candour,  its  controversial  brilliance,  the  sweep  and 
passion  of  its  rhetoric,  the  depth  of  its  personal  feel- 
ing, was  immediate  and  overwhelming,"  and  brought 
him  a  triumph  which  Manning  had  to  exert  all  his 
powers  to  defeat.  "It  is  remarkably  interesting," 
he  observed  of  the  book,  "  it  is  like  listening  to  the 
voice  of  one  from  the  dead."     Luckily  for  Manning 


EMINENT  VICTORIANS  171 

the  contest  was  unequal  owing  to  the  dove-like  nature 
of  Newman  and  his  own  eagle  qualities. 

Some  very  shrewd  hits  are  levelled  by  Mr  Straehey 
at  the  subject  of  a  controversy  which  then  perplexed 
the  Roman  Church — namely,  the  Infallibility  of  the 
Pope.  "It  is  not,"  he  writes,  "  because  he  satisfies 
the  reason,  but  because  he  astounds  it,  that  men 
abase  themselves  before  the  Vicar  of  Christ." 

Lord  Acton,  who  in  Mr  Straehey 's  words  "  swallowed 
the  camel  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Faith,"  had  also 
"strained  at  the  gnat  of  Infallibility,"  but  then 
"  there  are  some  who  know  how  to  wear  their  Rome 
with  a  difference  ;  and  Lord  Acton  was  one  of  these." 
It  was  of  Acton  that  Manning  said,  "  such  men  are 
all  vanity ;  they  have  the  inflation  of  German  pro- 
fessors, and  the  ruthless  talk  of  undergraduates." 

As  a  result  of  the  controversy  several  canons  were 
laid  down,  of  one  of  which  the  biographer  caustically 
writes  :  "In  other  words,  it  became  an  article  of 
Faith  that  Faith  was  not  necessary  for  a  true  know- 
ledge of  God." 

To  return  to  the  subject  of  the  biography.  We 
are  shown  in  picturesque  phrase  the  old  Manning  as 
the  ordinary  Englishman  knows  him. 

"  The  spare  and  stately  form,  the  head,  massive, 
emaciated,  terrible,  with  the  great  nose,  the  glittering 
eyes,  and  the  mouth  drawn  back  and  compressed  into 
the  grim  rigidities  of  age,  self-mortification,  and 
authority — such  is  the  vision  that  still  lingers  in  the 
public  mind — the  vision  which,  actual  and  palpable 
like  some  embodied  memory  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
used  to  pass  and  repass  through  the  streets  of  London." 

We  see  him  sitting  on  Royal  Commissions,  lecturing 
on  temperance,  writing  books,  quelling  strikes,  haunt- 


172  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

ing  the  Athenaeum,  an  active  member  of  the  Meta- 
physical Society,  indefatigably  active  while  Newman 
languished  in  Birmingham  :  but  in  spite  of  an  amaz- 
ingly shady  action  on  Manning's  part  Newman 
eventually  rose  to  be  a  Cardinal  and  enjoyed  his 
glory  for  ten  years. 

At  last  after  eighty -five  years  of  strenuous  living, 
marked  by  a  fervour  of  terrestial  ambition,  the 
Archbishop-Cardinal  himself  died  in  1892,  having 
won  by  art  what  he  would  never  have  won  by  force, 
a  leader  of  the  procession  less  through  merit  than 
through  a  superior  faculty  for  gliding  adroitly  to  the 
front  rank  :  in  him  the  Middle  Ages  seemed  to  have 
lived  again,  and  the  imagination  of  all  England  was 
touched  by  the  mysterious  glamour  of  his  personality. 
It  has  been  left  for  Mr  Strachey  to  destroy  our 
illusions,  and  by  so  doing  to  turn  our  allegiance  from 
the  eagle  to  the  dove,  from  the  autocratic  despot  to 
the  author  of  the  Apologia. 

In  his  second  Life,  that  of  Florence  Nightingale, 
Mr  Strachey  again  sets  out  to  destroy  an  idol :  the 
popular  conception  of  the  saintly,  self-sacrificing 
woman,  he  would  have  us  believe,  is  the  wrong  one. 
There  was  more,  he  suggests,  that  was  interesting, 
less  that  was  agreeable. 

In  very  able  language  he  depicts  for  us  the  aristo- 
cratic, well-to-do  young  girl  who  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
five  came  near  to  desperation  because  she  was  pre- 
vented from  going  to  Salisbury  Hospital  as  a  nurse. 
Mr  Strachey  draws  a  lurid  picture  of  the  "  nurse  " 
of  the  time  :  "  a  coarse  old  woman,  always  ignorant, 
usually  dirty,  often  brutal,  a  Mrs  Gamp,  tippling  at 
the  brandy-bottle,  or  indulging  in  worse  irregularities. 
The  nurses  in  the  hospitals  were  especially  notorious 
for  immoral  conduct ;   sobriety  was  almost  unknown 


EMINENT  VICTORIANS  173 

among  them  ;  and  they  could  hardly  be  trusted  to 
carry  out  the  simplest  medical  duties.  .  .  .  That 
things  have  changed  is  due,  far  more  than  to  any 
other  human  being,  to  Miss  Nightingale." 

For  eight  years  after  her  rebuff  over  Salisbury 
Hospital  she  struggled  and  worked  and  planned.  She 
devoured  reports  of  medical  commissions,  pamphlets 
of  sanitary  authorities,  and  the  histories  of  hospitals  : 
when  she  went  abroad  she  visited  all  the  great 
hospitals  in  Europe,  and  while  her  mother  and  sister 
were  at  Carlsbad  she  slipped  off  to  a  nursing  institu- 
tion at  Kaiserswerth  for  three  months  and  gained 
there  the  experience  which  formed  the  foundation  of 
all  her  future  action.  For  a  moment,  it  is  true,  she 
nearly  gave  up  her  ambitions  in  order  to  marry. 

"  I  have  an  intellectual  nature  which  requires 
satisfaction,"  she  wrote,  "  and  that  would  find  it  in 
him.  I  have  a  passional  nature  which  requires  satis- 
faction, and  that  would  find  it  in  him.  I  have  a 
moral,  an  active  nature  which  requires  satisfaction, 
and  that  would  not  find  it  in  his  life.  Sometimes  I 
think  that  I  will  satisfy  my  passional  nature  at  all 
events  ..."  but  she  had  the  strength  of  mind  to 
stamp  this  craving  imderfoot.  "  The  first  thought 
I  can  remember,  and  the  last,  was  nursing  work; 
and  in  the  absence  of  this,  education  work,  but  more 
the  education  of  the  bad  than  of  the  young.  ... 
Everything  has  been  tried.  .  .  .  My  God  !  what  is 
to  become  of  me  ?  ...  In  my  thirty-first  year  I 
see  nothing  desirable  but  death."  After  three  more 
years  her  family  relented  and  she  became  the  super- 
intendent of  a  charitable  nursing  home  in  Harley 
Street.  After  she  had  spent  one  year  there  the 
Crimean  War  broke  out,  and  the  terrible  condition 
of  our  military  hospitals  at  Scutari  began  to  be  known 


174         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

in  England.  Florence  Nightingale  was  now  thirty- 
four,  experienced,  free,  mature,  yet  still  young, 
desirous  to  serve,  accustomed  to  command  :  she  had, 
moreover,  in  Sidney  Herbert,  a  devoted  friend  in  the 
War  Office  :  with  thirty-eight  nurses,  amid  a  great 
burst  of  popular  enthusiasm,  she  left  for  Constanti- 
nople :  she  arrived  in  Scutari  ten  days  after  the 
Battle  of  Balaclava  and  the  day  before  the  Battle  of 
Inkerman,  on  November  4,  1854.  The  conditions 
were  appalling.  The  wounded  men  were  being  shipped 
in  batches  of  two  hundred  across  the  Black  Sea  with- 
out any  comforts  at  all.  There  were  no  beds,  no 
blankets,  and  no  medical  stores.  The  average  death- 
rate  on  these  voyages  was  seventy-four  in  the  thou- 
sand .  .  .  and  when  the  men  eventually  reached  the 
hospital  they  were  scarcely  better  off.  "  Huge  sewers 
underlay  it,  and  cess-pools  loaded  with  filth  wafted  their 
poison  into  the  upper  rooms.  The  floors  were  in  so 
rotten  a  condition  that  they  could  not  be  scrubbed  ;  the 
walls  were  thick  with  dirt ;  vermin  swarmed  everywhere. 
.  .  .  There  were  four  miles  of  beds,  crushed  together  so 
close  that  there  was  but  just  room  to  pass  between 
them  .  .  .  there  was  no  ventilation,  not  enough  bed- 
steads, no  bedroom  furniture,  empty  beer  bottles 
being  used  for  candlesticks,  no  basins,  no  towels,  no 
soap,  no  brooms,  no  mops,  no  trays,  no  plates : 
neither  slippers  nor  scissors,  no  forks,  knives,  or 
spoons  ;  the  cooking  was  preposterously  inadequate, 
the  laundry  a  farce."  And  yet  Miss  Nightingale  had 
been  assured  on  leaving  England  that  nothing  was 
needed.  Luckily  she  had  come,  in  spite  of  that 
assurance,  well  provided  with  money  and  provisions  : 
her  difficulty  was  to  obtain  leave  to  utilise  either  :  the 
head  doctor  regarded  her  with  suspicion  :  stores  were 
held  up  for  an  incredible  time  before  being  unpacked. 


EMINENT  VICTORIANS  175 

But  by  dint  of  continued  agitation  she  at  length 
reorganised  the  kitchens  and  laundries  :  she  procured 
socks,  boots,  and  shirts  in  enormous  quantities,  and, 
as  she  herself  phrased  it,  "  clothed  the  entire  British 
Army."  She  also  enlarged  the  buildings  and  supplied 
all  utensils  for  an  extra  five  hundred  men. 

"  It  was  not  by  gentle  sweetness  and  womanly  self- 
abnegation  .  .  .  but  by  strict  method,  by  stern  disci- 
pline, by  rigid  attention  to  detail,  by  ceaseless  labour, 
by  the  fixed  determination  of  an  indomitable  will 
that  she  achieved  all  this.  Beneath  her  cool  and  calm 
demeanour  lurked  fierce  and  passionate  fires  :  .  .  .  she 
struck  the  casual  observer  simply  as  the  pattern  of  a 
perfect  lady  :  but  the  keener  eye  perceived  something 
more  than  that — ^the  serenity  of  high  deliberation  in 
the  capacious  brow,  the  sign  of  power  in  the  dominat- 
ing curve  of  the  thin  nose,  and  the  traces  of  a  harsh 
and  dangerous  temper  ...  in  the  small  and  delicate 
mouth."  Late  at  night  she  would  write  hundreds  of 
letters  for  the  soldiers,  and  compose  long  confidential 
reports  to  Sidney  Herbert  full  of  recommendations, 
criticisms,  statistics,  and  denunciations.  After  six 
months  she  had  had  so  far  provided  for  the  physical 
needs  of  the  men  that  the  death-rate  fell  from  42  per 
cent,  to  twenty-two  per  thousand.  She  now  set  to 
work  to  look  after  mental  and  spiritual  needs.  She  set 
Up  and  furnished  reading-rooms  and  recreation  rooms, 
and  started  classes  and  lectures.  The  private  soldier 
began  to  drink  less  and  save  his  pay.  In  six  months 
£71,000  was  sent  home  :  she  personally  inspected  all 
the  hospitals  in  the  Crimea,  and  nearly  killed  herself 
with  the  fatigue  of  travel.  Dr  Hall,  who  had  bungled 
everything,  meanwhile  was  i*«;warded  with  a  K.C.B., 
*'  Knight  of  the  Crimean  Burial-grounds,"  in  Miss 
Nightingale's  bitter  language,  and  in  July  1856  she, 


176  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

who  had  done  everything,  came  home  to  receive  in 
her  turn  a  letter  of  thanks  from  Queen  Victoria  and 
a  brooch  ! 

Hereafter  the  conception  of  Florence  Nightingale 
fades  into  a  quite  different  embodiment  from  that 
which  we  were  brought  up  to  believe.  So  far  as  her 
legendary  reputation  is  concerned  she  might  well 
have  died  then  :  in  point  of  fact  she  lived  for  more 
than  fifty  years  longer,  insatiably  energetic.  The 
Crimean  War  was  no  more  than  an  incident  to  her ; 
a  fulcrum  with  which  she  hoped  to  move  the  world. 
Her  real  life  only  began  when,  in  the  popular  imagina- 
tion, it  had  ended. 

Shattered  in  health  as  she  was  by  reason  of  her 
superhuman  energy  she  was  now  ordered  to  rest : 
for  months  at  a  time  she  never  left  her  bed,  but  as 
she  lay  there,  gasping,  she  devoured  Blue  Books  and 
evolved  more  and  more  schemes.  She  was  per- 
petually haunted  by  the  ghost  of  Scutari ;  the  whole 
system  of  the  Army  Medical  Department  needed 
reform :  even  in  peace  and  at  home  the  mortality 
in  barracks  was  double  that  in  civil  life.  "  You 
might  as  well  take  1100  men  every  year  out  on  Salis- 
bury Plain  and  shoot  them,"  she  said. 

Her  business  now  was  to  gather  round  her  satellites 
to  help  her  in  her  mission.  Sidney  Herbert  was  her 
right-hand  man  ;  him  she  taught,  shaped,  dominated, 
and  swept  along  in  the  path  she  had  chosen  for  him. 
Arthur  Hugh  Clough,  to  whom  Mr  Strachey  is  a 
trifle  unkind,  was  used  to  buy  railway-tickets,  do 
up  and  carry  parcels,  and  correct  proof-sheets  ;  there 
was  also  "  Aunt  Mai,"  and  Dr  Sutherland,  the  sanitary 
expert,  who  acted  as  her  private  secretary. 

The  first  great  measure  was  the  appointment  of  a 
Royal  Commission  to  report  on  the  health  of  the 


EMINENT  VICTORIANS  177 

Army.  Not  relying  on  this  she  decided  to  draw  up 
her  own  report,  and  after  six  months'  incredible  in- 
dustry she  produced  Notes  Affecting  the  Health,  Effi" 
dency,  and  Hospital  Administration  of  the  British 
Arrnyt  a  book  of  800  closely  printed  pages,  laying 
down  vast  principles  of  far-reaching  reform,  contain- 
ing an  enormous  mass  of  information  of  the  most 
varied  kinds,  a  book  which  still  remains  as  the  lead- 
ing authority  on  medical  administration. 

But  there  was  an  obstruction  in  her  path  in  the 
person  of  Lord  Panmure,  who  triumphed  over  Miss 
Nightingale  in  making  the  chief  military  hospital  in 
England  (Netley)  completely  insanitary,  with  un- 
ventilated  rooms,  and  with  all  the  patients'  windows 
facing  north-east. 

But  when  Sidney  Herbert  became  Secretary  for  War 
Miss  Nightingale  got  her  chance,  and  between  1859 
and  1861  she  introduced  the  whole  system  of  reforms 
for  which  she  had  struggled  so  fiercely.  Barracks  and 
hospitals  were  remodelled  :  they  were  properly  venti- 
lated and  warmed  and  lighted  for  the  first  time  ; 
there  was  water,  there  were  kitchens.  By  1861  the 
mortaUty  had  decreased  by  a  half  since  the  Crimea  : 
the  Army  Medical  Department  had  been  completely 
reorganised  :  it  only  remained  to  reform  the  War 
Office  itself,  and  her  mission  would  be  accomplished. 
While  Sidney  Herbert  was  pledging  himself  to  do 
even  this,  she  turned  her  attention  to  the  army  in 
India,  and  with  the  opening  of  the  Nightingale  Train- 
ing School  for  Nurses  at  St  Thomas's  Hospital  in 
1860  she  became  the  founder  of  modem  nursing.  But 
Sidney  Herbert's  health  gave  way  under  the  struggle 
of  pitting  himself  against  such  a  doughty  opponent 
as  Mr  Gladstone,  and  failed.  A  beaten  man  he  re- 
ported himself  to  his  chief.     "  Beaten  !  "  exclaimed 


178         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

Florence  Nightingale.  "  Can't  you  see  that  you've 
simply  thrown  away  the  game  ?  And  with  all  the 
winning  cards  in  your  hands  !  It  is  a  worse  disgrace 
...  a  worse  disgrace  than  the  hospitals  at  Scutari." 

He  crawled  away  to  die,  followed  by  Clough : 
Aimt  Mai  deserted  her  niece,  and  the  embittered 
reformer  was  left  alone. 

For  ten  years  more  she  remained  a  potent  influence 
at  the  War  Office  and  then  turned  from  the  world  of 
action  to  that  of  thought.  Her  Suggestions  for 
Thought  to  the  Searchers  after  Truth  among  the  Artisans 
of  England  unravels  religious  difficulties  for  the  work- 
ing classes.  As  might  be  expected  she  is,  however, 
scarcely  orthodox.  As  Mr  Strachey  says  :  "  She  felt 
towards  God  as  she  might  have  felt  towards  a  glorified 
sanitary  engineer  :  she  seems  hardly  to  distinguish 
between  the  Deity  and  the  drains."  In  the  middle 
of  this  religious  disquisition  she  biu-sts  out  into  biting 
invective  on  the  falsities  of  family  life,  the  ineptitudes 
of  marriage,  and  the  emptiness  of  convention.  As 
Jowett  said  :  "  Your  work  might  be  carried  on,  not 
with  less  energy,  but  in  a  calmer  spirit." 

And  then  came  old  age,  and  the  sarcastic  years 
brought  the  proud  woman  her  punishment.  The 
terrible  commander  who  had  killed  Sidney  Herbert, 
to  whom  Jowett  had  applied  the  Homeric  words 
"  raging  insatiably,"  began  to  indulge  in  sentimental 
friendships  with  young  girls,  and  to  smile  all  day 
long. 

Three  years  before  her  death  (1907)  she  was  offered 
the  Order  of  Merit,  and  her  legendary  reputation 
revived.  But  Mr  Strachey  has  lifted  the  veil,  and  no 
one  who  reads  this  essay  will  ever  again  be  able  to 
regard  this  amazing  Victorian  giantess  with  the  same 
vague,  sloppy,  sentimental  affection  that  he  indulged 


EMINENT  VICTORIANS  179 

in  before.  She  is  certainly,  as  he  says,  **  more  in- 
teresting .  .  .  and  far  less  agreeable." 

The  sketch  of  Dr  Arnold  is  the  shortest  in  the  book, 
but  a  most  illuminating  record  of  how  the  Public 
School  system  has  come  to  be  what  it  is  to-day. 
Here  we  have  the  picture  of  a  young  man  who  early 
in  life  put  his  religious  difficulties  behind  him,  who 
at  the  age  of  thirty-three  became  Headmaster  of 
Rugby  and  changed  the  whole  face  of  education  in 
one  or  two  aspects  by  the  vigour  of  his  personality. 
The  Public  Schools  of  his  day  were  virgin  forests  : 
at  Eton  imder  Keate  we  read  of  a  life  of  freedom  and 
terror,  prosody  and  rebellion,  interminable  floggings, 
and  appalling  practical  jokes.  Every  Sunday  after- 
noon Keate  attempted  to  read  sermons  to  the  whole 
school :  every  Sunday  afternoon  the  whole  school 
shouted  him  down.  Rats  would  be  let  loose  .  .  . 
but  next  morning  discipline  would  be  reasserted  by 
means  of  the  whipping  block.  "  The  Public  Schools," 
said  Mr  Bowdler,  "  are  the  very  seats  and  nurseries 
of  vice." 

Arnold  set  out  to  change  all  this.  His  mission 
was  to  make  of  Rugby  "  a  place  of  really  Christian 
education  "  :  "  first,  religious  and  moral  principles  ; 
secondly,  gentlemanly  conduct ;  thirdly,  intellectual 
ability."  The  order  is  significant.  To  do  this  he 
decided  to  treat  the  boys  as  Jehovah  treated  the 
Chosen  People  :  he  would  found  a  theocracy :  and 
there  should  be  Judges  in  Israel.  He  converted  the 
Praeposter  into  an  organ  of  government.  The  school, 
like  the  human  race,  should  work  out  its  own  salva- 
tion. To  the  Sixth  Form  the  severe  formahty  of  his 
demeanour  was  to  some  degree  relaxed  :  to  the  rest  of 
the  school  never.  The  Sixth  Form  alone  were  excused 
from  chastisement :   it  was  privileged  to  chastise. 


180         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  AVRITERS 

So  far  as  teaching  went  his  reforms  were  few.  To 
the  teaching  of  history  he  allotted  one  hour  a  week  : 
he  took  it  for  granted  (like  H.  G.  Wells)  "  that  boys 
at  a  Public  School  will  never  learn  to  speak  or  pro- 
nounce French  well,  in  any  circumstances."  So 
modern  languages  were  to  be  learnt  grammatically 
as  dead  ones  !  Mathematics  fared  very  little  better. 
The  classics  were  left  to  form  the  basis  of  all  teaching. 
Latin  verses  and  Greek  prepositions  divided  between 
them  the  labours  of  the  week.  The  reading  of  the 
school  was  devoted  exclusively  to  selected  passages 
from  the  prose  WTiters  of  antiquity.  "  Boys  do  not 
like  poetry  "  was  one  of  his  more  ingenuous  dicta. 
Science  was  not  taught  at  all.  To  be  a  Christian  and 
a  gentleman  was  the  aim.  Consequently  the  funda- 
mental lesson  could  only  be  taught  in  the  school 
chapel,  and  it  was  there  that  the  centre  of  his  system 
was  fixed.  As  might  be  expected  he  acted  on  the 
theory  that  the  spirit  of  Elijah  must  precede  the 
spirit  of  Christ.  Consequently  his  tolerance  did  not 
extend  itself  to  modern  movements.  "  You  have 
heard,  I  doubt  not,  of  the  Trades  Unions,"  he  wrote, 
"  a  fearful  engine  of  mischief,  ready  to  riot  or  to 
assassinate." 

In  addition  to  his  labours  as  a  Headmaster,  with 
"  unhasting,  unresting  diligence "  he  wrote  many 
books  and  reared  a  family  of  ten  children.  He  died 
at  the  age  of  forty-six  and  left  behind  him  a  name 
which  in  educational  circles  is  ever  fresh.  Yet  so  far  as 
the  machinery  of  education  is  concerned  he  changed 
nothing.  Under  him  the  Public  Schools  remained 
devoted  to  the  teaching  of  Latin  and  Greek.  The 
moment  was  ripe  for  educational  reform,  and  he 
deliberately  threw  the  whole  weight  of  his  influence 
into  the  reactionary  scale  :   consequently  the  ancient 


EMINENT  VICTORIANS  181 

system  became  more  firmly  established  than  ever. 
On  the  other  hand,  by  introducing  morals  and  religion 
he  altered  the  whole  atmosphere.  No  longer  could 
the  schools  of  this  country  ignore  the  virtues  of 
respectability.  By  the  introduction  of  the  prefec- 
torial  system  he  produced  effects  which  would  have 
startled  and  perplexed  him  beyond  measure.  In  his 
day  when  school  was  over  the  boys  were  free  to  enjoy 
themselves  as  they  liked  :  "  the  taste  of  the  boys  of 
this  period  leaned  strongly  towards  flowers."  When 
they  played  games  they  did  so  for  pleasure.  The 
system  of  handing  over  the  government  to  an  oli- 
garchy, to  a  dozen  youths  of  seventeen,  had  not  yet 
borne  its  fruit.  Dr  Arnold  would  be  surprised  to 
find  that  he  has  proved  to  be  the  founder  of  the 
worship  of  athletics  and  the  worship  of  good  form. 
It  was  not  so  before  his  day  :  it  remains  to  be  seen 
if  it  will  be  so  always  after  him.  The  schoolboy  of 
to-day  is  beginning  to  chafe.  The  general  unrest 
pervades  even  the  sacrosanct  study  of  the  prceposter. 
A  schoolboy  has  written  a  novel :  a  whole  school  has 
dared  to  be  interested  in  politics.  Is  the  tyranny  of 
athletics  already  being  broken,  is  the  tyranny  of  the 
"  Bloods  "  coming  to  an  end  ?  It  will  be  an  interest- 
ing world  if  the  tyranny  of  the  Intellect  and  the 
tyranny  of  ^Esthetics  supersede  these  Spartan  gods. 

And  so  we  come  to  the  last  and  perhaps  most 
interesting  of  the  Eminent  Victorians,  General  Gordon. 
He  was  born  in  1833,  educated  at  Woolwich,  and 
given  a  commission  in  the  Royal  Engineers  :  when 
he  was  twenty-one  the  Crimean  War  claimed  him, 
and  he  fought  there  with  conspicuous  gallantry.  In 
1860  he  was  sent  to  China  and  had  his  first  great 
adventure. 

A  village  schoolmaster  (Hong-siu-tsuen)  began  to 


182         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

see  visions  after  an  illness  and  proclaimed  himself  as 
Tien  Wang,  the  Celestial  King  :  having  conceived  a 
grudge  against  the  Government  because  he  had  failed 
in  an  examination  he  decided  to  head  a  rebellion  : 
his  band  captured  Nankin  and  afterwards  Shanghai. 
The  Empire's  forces  under  the  title  of  "  The  Ever- 
Victorious  Army  "  met  with  slight  success,  but  were 
unable  to  make  any  real  headway  until  Gordon,  at 
the  age  of  thirty,  was  put  in  command  of  them.  His 
difficulties  were  very  great :  the  rebels  were  in  pos- 
session of  14,000  square  miles  of  territory  containing 
twenty  million  people.  Its  complicated  geographical 
system  of  interlacing  roads  and  waterways,  canals, 
lakes,  and  rivers  was  turned  by  Gordon  into  a  means 
of  offensive  warfare.  He  had  a  passion  for  map- 
making  and  was  thus  able  to  execute  a  series  of 
swift  manoeuvres  which  took  the  enemy  always  by 
surprise :  armed  steamboats  wrought  great  havoc  in 
the  rear  while  he  cut  them  off  piecemeal  in  the  field. 
The  "  Ever- Victorious  Army  "  was  changed  by  his 
genius  from  an  ill-disciplined  body  of  8000  men,  con- 
stantly on  the  verge  of  mutiny,  and  at  the  slightest 
provocation  melting  into  thin  air,  into  a  real  army. 
There  were  terrible  scenes  in  which  Gordon  faced 
the  whole  furious  army  alone  and  quelled  it.  Finally, 
he  attained  an  almost  magical  prestige.  He  used  to 
walk  at  the  head  of  his  troops  with  a  light  cane  in 
his  hand  and  completely  overawed  even  his  enemies. 
He  could  not,  however,  keep  on  good  terms  with  the 
Chinese  authorities  :  when  he  captured  Soo-chow  he 
agreed  to  spare  the  lives  of  the  leaders,  who  were 
immediately  assassinated  by  order  of  Li  Hung  Chang. 
As  a  result  of  this  he  resigned  his  command,  and  it 
was  only  with  the  utmost  reluctance  that  he  agreed 
to  resume  it  in  order  to  finish  the  war.     Tien  Wang, 


EMINENT  VICTORIANS  183 

"  judging  that  the  time  had  come  for  the  conclusion 
of  his  mission,  swallowed  gold  leaf  until  he  ascended 
to  Heaven,"  and,  the  rebellion  at  an  end,  Gordon  was 
free  to  return  to  England,  having  refused  an  enormous 
sum  of  money  and  accepted  the  Companionship  of 
the  Bath,  "  a  reward  usually  reserved  for  industrious 
clerks."  He  was  then  sent  for  six  years  to  Gravesend 
to  supervise  the  erection  of  forts  :  he  spent  his  time 
in  giving  away  all  his  food,  money,  and  affection  to 
the  poor  people  of  the  place,  and  reading  the  Bible 
in  lonely  poverty.  By  an  accident  he  was  then 
offered  the  Governorship  of  Equatoria,  and  spent  six 
more  years  in  fighting  against  an  appalling  climate, 
loathsome  diseases,  indifference  of  superiors  and  sub- 
ordinates, the  savagery  of  slave-traders,  and  the  hatred 
of  the  inhabitants.  He  reduced  his  own  salary  from 
£10,000  to  £2000  a  year,  and  consoled  himself  with 
reading  the  Bible,  drinking,  and  giving  vent  to  fits 
of  explosive  wrath. 

Succeeding  to  the  Governor-Generalship  of  the 
Sudan  he  fixed  his  headquarters  at  Khartoum  and 
quashed  a  native  rebellion  by  riding  a  camel  alone 
in  the  blazing  heat  across  eighty-five  miles  of  desert 
to  Suleiman's  camp,  and  signifying  that  the  rebels 
would  have  two  days  in  which  to  disperse.  At  his  own 
request  he  was  sent  on  a  diplomatic  mission  to  the 
Negus  of  Abyssinia  and  failed  owing  to  his  refusal 
of  a  bribe  :  he  was  arrested  and  reached  Cairo  after 
incredible  hardships  and  dangers  only  to  find  the 
whole  official  world  up  in  arms  against  his  honesty. 
He  arrived  in  England  in  1880  ill  and  exhausted,  but 
instead  of  resting  accepted  the  private  secretaryship 
to  the  Viceroy  of  India  and  stayed  with  him  three 
days.  He  was  asked  to  state  that  an  address  had 
been  read  with  interest  when  it  had  not  been  read 


184         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

at  all.  He  refused,  and  two  days  later  set  out  for 
Pekin,  spent  two  and  a  half  days  there,  and  returned  to 
England.  He  then  offered  his  services  to  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  in  their  war  with  the 
Basutos  :  receiving  no  answer  to  his  telegram  he 
took  over  the  command  of  the  Royal  Engineers  in 
Mauritius  for  a  year  :  the  Cape  authorities  then  urged 
him  to  come  to  their  aid,  and  after  a  violent  quarrel 
with  them  he  returned  home.  Meanwhile  in  the 
Sudan  Mohammed  Ahmad,  the  "  Mahdi,"  had  started 
on  his  adventurous  career.  Like  Tien  Wang  he  began 
as  a  religious  reformer  and  ended  as  a  rebel  king. 
He,  too,  fell  into  trances,  and  saw  visions,  prophesied 
and  performed  miracles.  A  holy  war  was  proclaimed 
against  the  Egyptian  misbelievers  :  Khartoum  fell  into 
their  hands,  together  with  great  quantities  of  guns 
and  ammunition  and  £100,000  in  specie.  The  Mahdi 
now  began  to  have  visions  of  a  universal  empire  and 
drew  up  rules  of  living  and  codes  of  punishment  for 
his  followers.  Blasphemers  were  to  be  hanged,  thieves 
to  have  their  right  hand  and  left  foot  hacked  off  in 
the  market-place ;  the  rhinoceros  whip  was  the 
favourite  instrument  of  chastisement :  men  were 
flogged  for  drinking  a  glass  of  wine,  they  were  flogged 
for  smoking :  if  they  swore,  they  received  eighty 
lashes  for  each  expletive.  The  Mahdi  himself  is 
excellently  described  by  Mr  Strachey  :  "  Fascination 
dwelt  in  every  movement,  every  glance.  The  eyes, 
painted  with  antimony,  flashed  extraordinary  fires  ; 
the  exquisite  smile  revealed,  beneath  the  vigorous 
lips,  white  upper  teeth  with  a  V-shaped  space  between 
them — the  certain  sign  of  fortune.  His  turban  was 
folded  with  faultless  art,  his  jibbeh,  speckless,  was 
perfumed  mth  sandal- wood,  musk,  and  attar  of  roses. 
.  .\  Thousands  prostrated  themselves  before  him.  .  .  . 


EMINENT  VICTORIANS  185 

Then  all  at  once  the  elephant's-tusk  trumpet  would 
give  out  its  enormous  sound.  The  brazen  war-drums 
would  summon,  with  their  weird  rolling,  the  whole 
host  to  arms.  The  green  flag  and  the  red  flag  and 
the  black  flag  would  rise  over  the  multitude.  The 
great  army  would  move  forward,  coloured,  glisten- 
ing, dark,  violent,  proud,  beautiful.  The  drunken- 
ness, the  madness,  of  religion  would  blaze  on  every 
face.  .  .  ." 

It  is  like  a  page  out  of  Macaulay.  Mr  Strachey 
has  an  inimitable  gift  for  conjuring  up  a  picture  as 
he  has  for  precising  documents  :  all  these  essays  are 
models  in  the  art  of  condensation  :  it  is  really  a  pity 
that  he  should  at  times  descend  to  take  such  pains 
to  be  merely  clever  or  ironical. 

To  combat  this  and  other  movements  the  English 
Government  intervened  :  an  English  fleet  bombarded 
Alexandria,  an  English  army  under  Lord  Wolseley 
won  a  big  battle  at  Tel-el-Kebir.  We  had  become 
the  masters  of  Egypt  and  restored  the  rule  of  the 
Pashas,  who  now  decided  to  destroy  the  Mahdi.  For 
this  purpose  they  sent  Colonel  Hicks  with  10,000  men 
to  suppress  him.  This  force  was  ambushed  by 
40,000  and  annihilated  :  the  gravity  of  this  disaster 
was  recognised  even  in  England  :  a  minority  of  the 
Liberal  party  was  in  favour  of  withdrawing  from 
Egypt  altogether  and  at  once.  Another  section  was 
in  favour  of  a  more  active  intervention,  but  the  great 
bulk  preferred  a  middle  course. 

The  Pall  Mall  Gazette  pressed  that  Gordon  should 
be  sent  out  to  Egypt,  Lord  Cromer  rejecting  the  idea 
with  all  his  might  at  first,  but  accepting  him  on  the 
understanding  that  he  would  facilitate  the  evacuation 
in  the  quickest  possible  time.  It  is  easy  to  see  that 
Gordon's  last  thought  was  evacuation  :    he  favoured 


186         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

vigorous  military  action.  It  is  less  easy  to  see  why  he 
was  sent  if  the  Government  really  wished  to  evacuate. 
On  his  arrival  at  Cairo  he  was  proclaimed  Governor- 
General  of  the  Sudan.  He  made  a  triumphal  entry  into 
Khartoum,  where  he  was  hailed  as  a  deliverer  :  taxes 
were  remitted,  even  slavery  was  sanctioned,  the  Egyp- 
tian troops  attended  morning  and  evening  prayers. 

"  The  glare  and  the  heat  of  that  southern  atmo- 
sphere, the  movement  of  the  crowded  city,  the  dark- 
faced  populace,  the  soldiers  and  the  suppliants,  the 
reawakened  consciousness  of  power,  the  glamour  and 
the  mystery  of  the  whole  strange  scene — these  things 
seized  upon  him,  engulfed  him,  and  worked  a  new 
transformation  in  his  intoxicated  heart.  .  .  .  He  was 
Gordon  Pasha,  he  was  the  Governor-General,  he  was 
the  ruler  of  the  Sudan.  .  .  .  The  distant  Governments 
might  mutter  something  about  *  evacuation  ' :  his 
thoughts  were  elsewhere." 

Meanwhile  England  had  been  stirred  to  a  warlike 
feeling  by  the  defeat  of  General  Baker  by  the  Mahdi's 
troops,  and  had  sent  out  Sir  Gerald  Graham,  who 
avenged  him  at  El  Teb  and  Tamai.  Gordon  then 
made  th&  fatal  mistake  of  advocating  the  appointment 
of  Zobeir  (the  notorious  slave-hunter)  as  the  ruler  of 
the  Sudan :  the  Anti-Slavery  Society  set  on  foot  a 
violent  agitation,  and  Sir  Gerald  Graham  and  his 
army  were  withdrawn.  Gordon's  position  at  once 
changed,  the  whole  scheme  of  his  mission  had  failed, 
and  so  far  from  having  effected  the  evacuation  of  the 
Sudan  he  was  himself  surrounded  and  cut  off.  He 
had  six  months'  supplies,  much  anamunition,  8000 
men,  and  nine  small  paddle-wheel  steamers :  the 
home  Government  did  nothing  owing  to  the  interven- 
tion of  Gladstone,  of  whom  Mr  Strachey  has  many 
interesting  things  to  say.     "  Speech  was  the  fibre  of 


EMINENT  VICTORIANS  187 

his  being ;  and,  when  he  spoke,  the  ambiguity  of 
ambiguity  was  revealed.  The  long,  winding,  intricate 
sentences,  with  their  vast  burden  of  subtle  and  com- 
plicated qualifications,  befogged  the  mind  like  clouds, 
and  like  clouds,  too,  dropped  thunderbolts  .  .  .  his 
views  upon  religion  were  uncritical  to  crudeness  :  he 
had  no  sense  of  humour.  Compared  with  Disraeli's, 
his  attitude  towards  life  strikes  one  as  that  of  an 
ingenuous  child." 

Gladstone,  at  any  rate,  refused  to  move  a  finger  to 
save  Gordon,  who  all  this  time  overlooked  Gladstone 
and  vented  his  wrath  on  Lord  Cromer,  of  whom  we 
read  that  "  he  had  a  steely  colourlessness,  and  a  steely 
pliability  and  a  steely  strength.  .  .  .  His  views  were 
long,  and  his  patience  was  even  longer  :  ...  he  passed 
his  life  entirely  in  the  East ;  and  the  East  meant  very 
little  to  him  ;  he  took  no  interest  in  it.  .  .  .  He  kept  up 
his  classics  :  his  ambition  was  to  become  an  institution, 
and  he  achieved  it."  To  this  man,  his  very  antithesis 
in  every  way,  Gordon  would  send  twenty  or  thirty 
telegrams  every  day  divulging  his  whole  character, 
its  incoherence,  its  eccentricity,  its  impulsiveness,  its 
romance,  its  frenzied  enthusiasm.  When  Gordon 
found  that  nothing  in  the  shape  of  help  was  forth- 
coming he  set  to  work  to  outwit  the  Mahdi's  force  as 
best  he  might.  Whatever  the  emergency,  he  was 
ready  with  devices  and  expedients.  \Mien  the  earth- 
works were  still  uncompleted  he  procured  hundreds 
of  yards  of  cotton,  which  he  dyed  the  colour  of  earth, 
and  spread  out  in  long  sloping  lines,  so  as  to  deceive 
the  Arabs,  while  the  real  works  were  being  prepared 
further  back.  He  printed  and  circulated  a  paper 
currency  :  he  instituted  a  system  of  orders  and  medals  : 
the  Mahdi  sent  him  the  uniform  of  his  new  religion 
in  the  hope  that  he  would  come  out  and  join  him. 


188         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

And  now  Lord  Hartington  enters  upon  the  scene, 
Lord  Hartington  who  was  never  self-seeking,  never 
excited,  and  who  had  no  imagination  at  all,  the  man 
who  confessed  to  two  ambitions,  to  be  Prime  Minister 
and  to  win  the  Derby,  who  said  that  the  proudest 
moment  of  his  life  was  when  his  pig  won  the  prize 
at  Skipton  Fair,  a  duke  who  might  have  passed  for 
a  farm  hand. 

"  The  fate  of  General  Gordon,  so  intricately  inter- 
woven with  such  a  mass  of  complicated  circumstance — 
with  the  policies  of  England  and  of  Egypt,  with  the 
fanaticism  of  the  Mahdi,  with  the  irreproachability 
of  Lord  Cromer,  with  Mr  Gladstone's  mysterious 
passions — was  finally  determined  by  the  fact  that 
Lord  Hartington  was  slow." 

First,  he  discovered  that  he  was  responsible  for 
Gordon's  appointment ;  then,  that  his  conscience 
would  not  allow  him  to  remain  inactive ;  thirdly,  he 
made  an  attempt  to  induce  the  Cabinet  to  take  action  ; 
fourthly,  he  realised  that  the  Cabinet  had  decided 
to  postpone  relief ;  fifthly,  he  realised  that  he  must 
put  pressure  on  Gladstone ;  sixthly,  he  attempted  to 
exert  this  pressure  and  failed ;  seventhly,  he  suc- 
ceeded, and  the  relief  expedition  was  ordered.  All 
this  took  a  considerable  time,  and  it  was  only  because 
he  threatened  to  resign  that  action  was  ultimately 
taken.  A  grant  of  £300,000  was  made ;  Lord 
Wolseley  was  placed  in  command  of  the  relief. 

Gordon  in  the  meantime  was  now  without  any 
European  to  talk  to  or  communicate  with,  and  so 
wrote  untiringly  on  his  telegraph  forms  to  put  his 
case  clearly  before  posterity :  with  bitterness  he 
caricatured  his  enemies  at  home.  Of  his  40,000  in- 
habitants he  trusted  none :  the  soldiers  were  cowards  : 
his  admiration  was  reserved  for  the  foe. 


EMINENT  VICTORIANS  189 

0^ving  to  the  fact  that  the  Nile  was  exceptionally 
low  the  flotillas,  upon  which  Wolseley's  force  relied, 
were  unable  to  surmount  the  cataracts.  A  swift  dash 
across  the  desert  was  the  only  alternative,  but  weeks 
elapsed  before  sufficient  camels  could  be  collected. 
Sir  Herbert  Stewart  at  the  head  of  1100  British  troops 
eventually  left  Korti  on  a  170-mile  trek  across  the 
desert,  his  advance  being  disputed  at  every  step.  He 
himself  was  killed,  and  there  were  over  250  casualties 
before  they  reached  Metemmah.  Sir  Charles  Wilson, 
succeeding  to  the  command,  started  up  the  river  for 
Khartoum,  and  his  ship  struck  on  a  rock  and  further 
delayed  the  force.  .  .  .  On  January  28  he  arrived 
within  sight  of  Khartoum  and  saw  that  the  Egyptian 
flag  was  not  flying  .  .  .  the  relief  was  two  days  too 
late.  Fragments  of  evidence  give  us  some  idea  of 
the  final  stages  of  the  catastrophe  :  Gordon's  hair 
had  turned  suddenly  white.  The  famine  was  so  acute 
that  dogs,  donkeys,  skins,  gum,  and  palm  fibre  were 
devoiu-ed  by  the  people.  Hundreds  died  of  hunger 
daily.  By  nmiours,  letters,  and  printed  papers 
Gordon  endeavoured  to  inspire  the  garrison  with 
courage  to  hold  out.  When  the  Mahdi  actually 
attacked  resistance  was  futile  and  scarcely  offered. 
Gordon  was  transfixed  by  Dervish  spears  and  then 
hacked  to  death.  His  head  was  taken  to  the  Mahdi 
and  then  fixed  between  the  branches  of  a  tree  in  the 
public  highway,  and  all  who  passed  threw  stones  at  it. 
The  Mahdi  remained  supreme  lord  of  the  Sudan.  Not 
until  thirteen  years  after  was  Gordon's  death  avenged 
by  Lord  Kitchener  in  the  slaughter  of  Omdurman  .  .  . 
and  in  Mr  Strachey's  trenchant  phrase,  "  it  all  ended 
very  happily — in  a  glorious  slaughter  of  20,000  Arabs, 
a  vast  addition  to  the  British  Empire,  and  a  step  in 
the  Peerage  for  Sir  Evelyn  Baring  "  (Lord  Cromer). 


190  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

Such  is  Mr  Strachey's  contribution  to  the  history 
of  a  period  which  we  have  for  some  time  been  pleased 
to  maHgn.  If  it  is  his  purpose  to  add  another  nail 
to  the  coffin  he  will  be  disappointed,  for  the  general 
impression  given  by  reading  these  lives  of  Manning, 
Miss  Nightingale,  Dr  Arnold,  and  General  Gordon  is 
that  the  quartette  have  a  more  vigorous  personality, 
more  tenacity  of  purpose,  more  British  pluck  and 
heroism  than  we  have  ever  accredited  them  with 
before.  Mr  Strachey  has  been  savagely  attacked  for 
wanton  perversion  of  the  truth,  for  drawing  totally 
inaccurate  pictiires  of  famous  men,  for  casting  ridicule 
on  respected  institutions  and  persons.  His  asperity 
is  to  some  of  us  his  chief  charm  :  like  Newman  we 
imagine  him  to  be  a  great  hater,  and  what  is  the  use 
of  a  historian  who  is  not  avowedly  a  partisan  ?  The 
difficulty  is  rather  to  see  what  were  the  "  certain 
fragments  of  the  truth  "  about  the  Victorian  age  that 
Mr  Strachey  found  in  delving  through  the  masses  of 
compilations  written  round  his  four  representatives.  If 
he  merely  wanted  to  cast  aspersions  on  the  Established 
Church  or  religion  in  general,  as  we  find  him  doing  so 
frequently,  he  might  have  done  so  more  directly  :  he 
certainly  makes  no  point  of  convention  or  "  groovi- 
ness  "  which  is  our  usual  charge  against  our  grand- 
fathers :  Gordon  was  the  least  of  a  "  groovy  "  man 
imaginable.  We  are  shown  the  dilatoriness  of  poli- 
ticians, the  shocking  and  culpable  inefficiency  of 
departments,  it  is  true,  but  these  things  are  not 
peculiar  to  the  Victorians. 

No — it  is  better  to  search  for  no  underlying  policy, 
but  merely  to  revel  in  a  well-told  tale.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  in  the  mind  of  any  reader  that  here  is  a 
book  which  will  take  deeper  and  deeper  hold  on  the 
public  mind  as  time  goes  on.     It  is  a  fresh  method  of 


EMINENT  VICTORIANS  191 

biography,  brief,  biased,  and  ruthless  ;  it  is  in  some 
ways  reminiscent  of  Macaulay,  but  the  touch  of 
wickedness  in  it  is  all  Mr  Strachey's  own.  \Vhatever 
else  it  does  not  do,  it  sends  us  back  to  study  very 
carefully  all  the  contemporary  documents  written 
about  the  four  subjects  of  his  study,  if  only  to  have 
the  joy  of  proving  him  wrong. 

Furthermore,  it  destroys  at  a  blow  all  the  nebulous 
but  deeply  cherished  visions  and  legends  which  we  had 
conjured  up  from  our  nursery  tales  and  at  the  hands 
of  uneducated  pastors  and  masters.  Most  of  us  have 
a  theory  that  English  history  ceased  with  the  fourth 
George  :  at  any  rate  we  know  nothing  of  the  last 
hundred  years  beyond  a  few  facts  which  are  mainly 
wrong.  Mr  Strachey  does  give  us  a  picture  of  life : 
it  is  interesting  to  know  that  in  that  molluscous  age 
there  were  found  people  of  energy,  people  of  ambition, 
crafty,  mean,  spiteful,  petty,  passionate  men  and 
women. 


n 

TRIVIA 

HAVING  read  Mr  Logan  Pearsall  Smith's 
most  respectable  and  informative  book  on 
the  Enghsh  Language  in  The  Home  Uni- 
versity Library  you  will  be  totally  imprepared  for 
Trivia^  but  the  first  note  in  this  amazingly  frank  book 
will  key  you  up  to  the  proper  atmosphere  required 
for  appreciation  of  his  philosophy. 

"  These  pieces  of  moral  prose,"  he  writes,  "  have 
been  written,  dear  Reader,  by  a  large  Carnivorous 
Mammal,  belonging  to  that  sub-order  of  the  Animal 
Kingdom  which  includes  also  the  Orang-outang,  the 
tusked  Gorilla,  the  Baboon  with  his  bright  blue  and 
scarlet  bottom,  and  the  gentle  Chimpanzee."  And 
what  is  it  that  we  are  to  learn  from  this  large  car- 
nivorous mammal  ?  Like  a  true  son  of  the  twentieth 
century  he  shows  us  the  futility  of  the  Eastern  proverb 
which  suggests  that  we  should  "go  to  the  ant,  thou 
sluggard." 

"  I  have  sought  instruction  from  the  Bees,  and  tried 

to  appropriate  to  myself  the  old  industrious  lesson. 

And  yet,  hang  it  all,  who  by  rights  should  be  the 

teacher  and  who  the  learners  ?     For  those  peevish, 

over-toiled,  utilitarian  insects,  was  there  no  lesson  to 

be  derived  from  the  spectacle  of  Me  ?     Gazing  out 

at  me  with  myriad  eyes  from  their  joyless  factories, 

might  they  not  learn  at  last — ^might  I  not  finally 

teach  them — a  wise  and  more  generous-hearted  way 

to  improve  the  shining  hours  ?  " 

192 


TRIVIA  193 

In  other  words,  doesn't  our  Western  civilisation 
need  to  be  taught  to  seek  a  point  of  rest,  not  to  be 
for  ever  patting  itself  on  the  back  on  account  of  its 
feverish  energy  ?  There  are  lessons  to  be  learnt  from 
the  lilies  of  the  field,  which  toil  not,  neither  do  they 
spin. 

For  instance,  Mr  Pearsall  Smith  in  slack,  reflective 
mood  can  absorb  beauty  without  wishing  to  put  it 
to  a  utilitarian  use.  "  I  had  not  remembered  the 
glory  of  the  wheat,  nor  imagined  in  my  reading  that 
.  .  .  there  could  be  anything  so  rich,  so  prodigal,  so 
reckless,  as  this  opulence  of  ruddy  gold." 

It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  such  an  attitude  could 
win  approval  from  his  elders. 

"  They  sit  there  for  ever  on  the  dim  horizon  of  my 
mind,  that  Stonehenge  circle  of  elderly,  disapproving 
Faces — Faces  of  the  Uncles  and  Schoolmasters  and 
Tutors  who  frowned  on  my  youth.  In  the  bright  centre 
and  sunlight  I  leap,  I  caper,  I  dance  my  dance  ;  but 
when  I  look  up,  I  see  they  are  not  deceived.  For  nothing 
ever  placates  them,  nothing  ever  moves  to  a  look  of 
approval  that  ring  of  bleak,  old,  contemptuous  faces." 

His  hatred  of  all  that  these  Stonehenge  Faces  stand 
for  can  be  judged  by  his  note  In  Church.  "  '  For  the 
pen,'  said  the  Vicar  ;  and  in  the  sententious  pause 
that  followed,  I  felt  that  I  would  offer  any  gifts  of 
gold  to  avert  or  postpone  the  solemn,  inevitable,  and 
yet,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  perfectly  appalling  statement 
that  '  The  pen  is  mightier  than  the  sword.'  "  And 
again  : 

"  '  Yes,'  said  Sir  Thomas,  speaking  of  a  modern 
nov^el,  '  it  certainly  does  seem  strange ;  but  the 
novelist  was  right.     Such  things  do  happen.' 

*' '  But,  my  dear  sir,"  I  burst  out,  in  my  rudest 
manner,  '  think  what  life  is — just  think  what  really 

N 


194  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

happens  !  Why,  people  suddenly  swell  up  and  turn 
dark  purple  ;  they  hang  themselves  on  meat-hooks  : 
they  are  drowned  in  horse-ponds,  are  run  over  by 
butchers'  carts,  and  are  burnt  alive  and  cooked  like 
mutton  chops.' " 

"  When,"  he  writes  later,  "  in  modern  books  ...  I 
read  about  the  Needs  of  the  Age,  its  Dismays,  Doubts, 
and  Spiritual  Agonies,  I  feel  an  impulse  to  go  out  and 
comfort  it,  wipe  away  its  tears,  still  its  cries,  and 
speak  earnest  words   of  Consolation  to  it  .  .  .  but 
how  can  one  toil  at  the  great  task  with  this  hurry  and 
tumult  of  birds  just  outside  the  open  window  ?     I 
hear  the  Thrush,  and  the  Blackbird,  that  romantic 
liar ;   then  the  delicate  cadence,  the  wiry  descending 
scale  of  the  Willow-wren,  or  the  Blackcap's  stave  of 
mellow  music.  .  .  .  Why  should  all  the  birds  of  the  air 
conspire  against  me  ?     My  concern  is  with  the  sad 
Himian  Species,  with  lapsed  and  erroneous  Humanity, 
not    with    that    inconsiderate,    wandering,    feather- 
headed  race."     But  he  is  at  his  best  in  such  a  note 
as  Vertigo  :   "  No,  I  don't  like  it ;   I  can't  approve  of 
it ;    I  have  always  thought  it  most  regrettable  that 
serious  and  ethical  Thinkers  like  ourselves  should  go 
scuttling  through  space  in  this  undignified  manner. 
Is  it  seemly  that  I,  at  my  age,  should  be  hm'led  with 
my  books  and  dictionaries  and  bedclothes  and  hot- 
water  bottle,  across  the  sky  at  the  imthinkable  rate 
of  nineteen  miles  a  second  ?     As  I  say,  I  don't  at  all 
like  it.     This  universe  of  Copemican  whirligigs  makes 
me    a    little   giddy.     That    God    should    spend    His 
eternity — which  might  be  so  much  better  employed — 
in  spinning  endless  Solar  Systems,  and  skylarking,  like 
a  great  child,  with  tops  and  teetotums — is  not  this 
a  serious  scandal  ?     I  wonder  what  all  our  circum- 
gyrating  Monotheists  really  do  think  of  it  ?  " 


TRIVIA  195 

It  is  pleasant,  now  and  again,  to  come  across  a  man 
who  is  not  so  encrusted  with  tradition  that  he  must 
needs  take  everything  for  granted,  a  man,  too,  of  no 
httle  wit  and  humour,  who  can  see  clearly  and  face 
every  issue  without  flinching,  a  philosopher  who  is  so 
much  at  the  mercy  of  ludicrous  images  that  he  can 
see  nothing  in  front  seats,  episcopal,  judicial,  parlia- 
mentary benches,  but  things  for  serious,  middle-aged 
ambition  to  sit  on.  It  is  his  whimsical  sense  of  the 
incongruous  that  so  endears  him  to  us,  his  catching 
and  nailing  down  those  sweet  fleeting  impressions 
which  seize  upon  us  when  our  senses  for  a  moment 
are  alive.  "  I  who  move  and  breathe  and  place  one 
foot  before  the  other,  who  watch  the  moon  wax  and 
wane,  and  put  off  answering  letters,  where  shall  I 
find  the  bliss  which  dreams  and  blackbirds'  voices 
promise,  of  which  the  waves  whisper,  and  hand- 
organs  in  streets  near  Paddington  faintly  ring  ?  " 

Though  he  frequently  imagines  himself  an  immense 
thought-bubble,  a  floating,  diaphanous,  opal-tinted 
dream,  he  is  human  enough  to  peer  in  through 
windows  left  open  on  hot  nights  and  look  in  at  dinner- 
parties, through  lace  curtains  and  window-flowers, 
at  the  silver,  the  women's  shoulders,  the  shimmer  of 
their  jewels,  and  the  divine  attitudes  of  their  heads 
as  they  lean  and  listen,  imagining  extraordinary  in- 
trigues and  unheard-of  wines  and  passions.  He  is 
human  enough  to  hate  social  success.  "  The  servant 
gave  me  my  coat  and  hat,  and  in  a  glow  of  self- 
satisfaction  I  walked  out  into  the  night.  '  A  delight- 
ful evening,'  I  reflected,  '  the  nicest  kind  of  people. 
What  I  said  about  finance  and  French  philosophy 
impressed  them  ;  and  how  they  laughed  when  I  imi- 
tated a  pig  squeaking.'  "  But  soon  after  :  "  God, 
it's  awful,"  I  muttered,  "  I  wish  I  were  dead." 


19«  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

Though  that  particular  feeling  must  be  common  to 
all  of  us  who  feel  or  think  at  all,  I  can  remember  no 
occasion  when  any  one  has  expressed  it  before  either 
in  writing  or  in  speech.  That  is  one  of  the  reasons 
why  Trivia  is  the  kind  of  book  one  will  neither  forget 
nor  part  with.  It  is  just  us  at  our  freshest,  most  child- 
like, most  individual,  most  human  self-prattling,  se- 
curing to  all  eternity  the  thoughts  that  matter,  which 
are  so  precious  and  yet  so  evanescent  that  we  never 
actually  formulate  them  in  speech  or  on  paper. 

It  is  a  grand  thing  to  be  able  to  project  oneself 
from  one's  wretched  surroimdings,  as  IMr.  Pearsall 
Smith  always  seems  able  to  do  :  "  As  I  sat  inside 
that  crowded  'bus,  so  sad,  so  incredible  and  sordid 
seemed  the  fat  face  of  the  woman  opposite  me,  that 
I  thought  of  Kihmanjaro  .  .  .  the  grassy  slopes  and 
green  Arcadian  realms  of  negro  kings  from  which  its 
great  cone  rises,  the  immense,  dim,  elephant -haunted 
forests  which  clothe  its  flanks,  and  above,  the  white 
dome  of  snow.  ..."  Here  we  have  the  secret  of 
him  :  the  author  of  these  inconsequent  notes  is  a 
poet  in  disguise  :  he  could  sit  all  day  by  a  waterfall 
reading  The  Faerie  Queene,  or  listen  all  day  to  the 
rain  on  the  roof :  instead  of  liberty,  fraternity,  and 
equality  he  preaches  the  golden  gospel  of  Dignity, 
Stateliness,  and  leisure,  and  the  greatest  of  these  is 
Leisure.  He  is  one  of  those  lucky  men  who  "  can 
hardly  post  a  letter  without  marvelling  at  the  excel- 
lence and  accuracy  of  the  postal  system "  :  like 
Dorothy  Richardson  he  is  definitely  and  literally  in 
love  Avith  life,  and  is  never  able  to  cease  from  bursting 
into  shouts  of  applause  at  things  which  most  men 
regard  with  the  utmost  complacence.  As  a  frame  of 
mind  the  following  has  much  to  commend  it :  "I 
am  sometimes  afraid  of  finding  that  there  is  a  moral 


TRIVIA  107 

for  everything  :  ...  it  would  be  a  kind  of  Hell,  surely, 
a  world  in  which  everything  could  be  at  once  explained, 
shown  to  be  obvious  and  useful.  I  am  sated  with 
Lesson  and  Allegory,  weary  of  monitory  ants,  indus- 
trious bees,  and  preaching  animals.  ...  I  hate  Ibsen 
and  problem  plays  and  the  Supernatural  and  Switzer- 
land and  Adultery." 

It  is  not  that  he  is  blind  to  realities.  "  Too  often, 
among  the  thoughts  in  the  loveliest  heads,  we  come 
on  nests  of  woolly  caterpillars." 

In  spite  of  being  able  to  assume  an  Asiatic  detach- 
ment in  Oxford  Street  the  sight  of  a  neatly  fitted 
suit-case  in  a  shop  window  is  enough  to  chain  him 
once  more  to  the  wheel  of  existence  and  envelope 
him  again  in  the  mists  of  illusion. 

"  And  what  are  you  doing  now  ?  *'  his  school  con- 
temporaries ask.  .  .  .  And  the  answer  is  important. 

"  It  somehow  seemed  enough,  just  to  be  alive  in 
the  Spring,  with  the  young  green  of  the  trees,  the 
smell  of  smoke  in  the  sunshine  ;  I  loved  the  old  shops 
and  books,  the  uproar  darkening  and  brightening  in 
the  shabby  daylight.  Just  a  run  of  good-looking 
faces — and  I  was  always  looking  for  faces — would 
keep  me  amused  .  .  .  and  anyhow,  soon,  so  soon 
(in  only  seven  million  years  or  thereabouts,  the  Ency- 
clopaedia said),  this  Earth  would  grow  cold,  all  human 
activities  end,  and  the  last  wretched  mortals  freeze 
to  death  in  the  dim  rays  of  the  dying  Sun."  It  is 
this  happy  knack  of  linking  up  the  trivial  with  the 
colossal,  the  transient  with  the  eternal,  that  causes 
us  to  readjust  our  values  after  reading  Pearsall  Smith. 
His  criticism  of  Anglican  Church  Services  is  shrewd 
and  to  the  point :  "  We  had  gathered  together  to 
pay  our  duty  to  a  highly  respected  Anglican  First 
Cause — ^imdemonstrative,  gentlemanly,  and  conscien- 


198  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

tious — whom,  without  loss  of  self-respect,  we  could 
decorously  praise." 

A  ruthless  critic  of  others  he  is  not  blind  to  the 
possibility  that  others  may  find  in  him  faults  which 
he  cannot  see. 

"  *  But  there  are  certain  people  I  simply  cannot 
stand.  A  dreariness  and  sense  of  death  comes  over 
me  when  I  meet  them — I  really  find  it  difficult  to 
breathe  when  they  are  in  the  room,  as  if  they  had 
pumped  all  the  air  out  of  it.  Wouldn't  it  be  dreadful 
to  produce  that  effect  on  people  !  But  they  never 
seem  to  be  aware  of  it.  I  remember  once  meeting 
a  famous  Bore  ;  I  really  must  tell  you  about  it,  it 
shows  the  unbelievable  obtuseness  of  such  people.* 
I  told  this  and  another  story  or  two  with  great  gusto, 
and  talked  on  of  my  experiences  and  sensations,  till 
suddenly  I  noticed,  in  the  appearance  of  my  charming 
neighbour,  something — a  slightly  glazed  look  in  her 
eyes,  a  just  perceptible  irregularity  in  her  breathing — 
which  turned  that  occasion  for  me  into  a  kind  of 
Nightmare." 

A  man  who  is  as  hiunan  as  that  is  worth  his  weight 
in  rubies.  He  has  found  out  many  secrets  worth 
knowing,  not  the  least  important  of  which  is  con- 
tained in  Inconstancy. 

"  The  rose  that  one  wears  and  throws  away,  the 
friend  one  forgets,  the  music  that  passes — out  of  the 
well-known  transitoriness  of  mortal  things  I  have 
made  myself  a  maxim  or  precept  to  the  effect  that 
it  is  foohsh  to  look  for  one  face,  or  to  listen  long  for 
one  voice,  in  a  world  that  is,  after  all,  as  I  know,  full 
of  enchanting  voices.  But  all  the  same,  I  can  never 
quite  forget  the  enthusiasm  with  which,  as  a  boy,  I 
read  the  praises  of  Constancy  and  True  Love,  and  the 
unchanged  Northern  Star." 


TRIVIA  199 

When  all  else  fails,  wine,  friendship,  eating,  making 
love,  the  consciousness  of  virtue,  and  we  find  our- 
selves lamenting  our  lost  youth,  we  may  turn  to  Trivia 
and  find  the  true  consolation  of  life.  ..."  Read- 
ing, the  nice  and  subtle  happiness  of  reading.  This 
was  enough,  this  joy  not  dulled  by  Age,  this  polite 
and  unpunished  vice,  this  selfish,  serene,  lifelong  in- 
toxication." 

That  is  the  whole  secret  of  Trivia's  success  :  it  is 
full  of  intoxications. 

"  I  should  be  all  right  .  .  ."  he  writes.  "If  it 
weren't  for  these  sudden  visitations  of  Happiness, 
these  doM'^npourings  of  Heaven's  blue,  little  invasions 
of  Paradise,  or  waftings  to  the  Happy  Islands,  or 
whatever  you  may  call  these  disconcerting  Moments, 
I  should  be  like  everybody  else,  and  as  blameless  a 
ratepayer  as  any  in  our  Row." 

That  is  just  the  point :  he  might  be  all  right,  but 
we  should  have  had  no  Trivia  :  it  is  just  because  he 
has  had  the  sense  to  realise  the  importance  of  the 
fleeting  vision  and  refused  to  be  "  bluffed  "  into  believ- 
ing in  the  ordinary  man's  sense  of  values  that  he  has 
been  able  to  scatter  his  pearls  of  wisdom  over  these 
all  too  brief  pages. 

Trivia  not  only  deserves  prominence,  it  deserves 
permanence.  The  few  who  care  most  passionately 
for  its  clear-sightedness,  its  warm,  rich  humour,  its 
profound  truth,  its  wholesale  destruction  of  shams, 
and  its  touches  of  gorgeous  colour  and  subtle  music, 
will  not  lightly  allow  it  to  pass  unrecognised.  There 
is  no  book  quite  like  it. 


Ill 

Q"  AS  CRITIC 


SIR  ARTHUR  QUILLER-COUCH'S  reputation 
as  a  literary  critic  rests  on  three  books,  Studies 
in  Literature^  Shakespeare's  Workmanship^  and 
On  the  Art  of  Writing.  In  all  these  he  has  brought  some- 
thing quite  fresh  into  the  academic  world  to  which  he 
now  belongs,  an  atmosphere  that  one  associates  vn.\h. 
Hazlitt  and  Frank  Harris,  and  certainly  not  with  Uni- 
versity Dons  ;  in  other  words,  he  approaches  literature 
as  a  man  of  the  world  who  realises  how  near  it  all  is 
to  actual  life,  and  how  far  removed  from  codified 
formulae  or  the  rarefied  atmosphere  of  the  study. 

In  Studies  in  Literature,  which  is  a  collection  of 
familiar  discourses,  and  only  a  prelude  to  sterner  work, 
he  leads  off  with  an  essay  on  The  Commerce  of  Thought 
which  serves  as  an  excellent  index  of  the  richness  of 
his  imagination.  Why  does  not  some  one,  he  asks, 
write  a  History  of  Trade-Routes  ? 

"  By  what  caravan  tracks,  through  what  depots, 
did  the  great  slave  traffic  wind  up  out  of  Africa  and 
reach  the  mart  at  Constantinople  ?  What  sort  of  men 
worked  goods  down  the  Rhone  valley ;  and,  if  by  water, 
by  what  contrivances  ?  .  .  .  How  did  the  Crusaders 
handle  transport  and  commissariat  ?  .  .  .  W'ho  planted 
the  vineyards  of  Bordeaux,  Madeira,  the  Rhine-land, 
and  from  what  stocks  ?  .  .  .  Why  and  how  did  England 
and  Flanders  come  to  supply  Europe,  the  one  with 
wool,  the  other  with  fine  linen  and  naperies  ?  .  .  . 


"  Q  "  AS  CRITIC  201 

These  and  like  questions  are  of  the  first  importance, 
if  you  would  understand  history,  if  you  would  take 
hold,  in  imagination,  of  the  human  motives  which  make 
history.  ..."  Roughly,  he  says,  it  is  love  and  hunger 
that  drive  man  to  make  wars  and  to  migrate,  though 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  have  left  home  and 
country  for  the  sake  of  learning.  Trade  disputes, 
money — these  are  the  causes  of  wars.  Let  your 
imagination  play  on  these  old  trade-routes  and  you 
will  wonderfully  seize  the  romance  of  history.  "  You 
will  see  .  .  .  dotted  ships  on  wide  seas,  crawling  trains 
of  emigrant  wagons,  pioneers,  tribes  on  the  trek,  .  .  . 
families  loading  their  camels  with  figs  and  dates  for 
Smyrna,  .  .  .  olive-gatherers,  long  trains  of  African 
porters,  desert  caravans,  dahabeeyahs  pushing  up  the 
Nile,  puffs  of  smoke  where  the  expresses  run  across 
Siberia,  Canada,  or  northward  from  Cape  Town, 
Greenland  whalers,  trappers  around  Hudson's  Bay." 

It  is  easy  to  see,  in  the  light  of  this  extract,  the 
spirit  of  the  romantic  novelist,  the  passionate  enthu- 
siast of  far-off  days,  the  devotee  of  an  ever-living 
history  hard  at  work  to  rouse  his  pupils  to  a  like 
interest.  His  fancy  plays  lightning-like  on  all  sorts 
of  obscure  comers,  revealing  through  the  dust  the 
underlying  glory.  From  the  dissemination  of  plants 
("  take  some  seed  that  has  lodged  on  his  long  tramp 
northward  in  the  boot-sole  of  a  common  soldier  in 
Vespasian's  legion.  The  boot  reaches  Dover,  plods 
on,  wears  out,  is  cast  by  the  way,  rots  in  a  ditch. 
From  it,  next  spring,  Britain  has  gained  a  new  flower  ") 
he  passes  to  the  wanderings,  alightings,  and  fertilising 
of  man's  thought. 

"  Some  one  copies  down  a  little  poem  on  reed  paper, 
on  the  back  of  a  washing  bill :  the  paper  goes  to  wrap 
a  mummy  ;  long  centuries  pass  ;  a  tomb  is  laid  bare 


202         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

of  the  covering  sand,  and  from  its  dead  ribs  they  un- 
wind a  passionate  lyric  of  Sappho's."  Again  :  "  How 
do  you  account  for  the  folk-stories  ?  Take  Cinderella, 
or  Red  Riding  Hood,  or  Hop-o'-my-Thumb.  How  can 
you  explain  that  these  are  common  not  only  to  widely 
scattered  nations  of  the  race  we  call  Aryan,  from  Asia 
to  Iceland,  but  common  also  to  savages  in  Borneo 
and  Zululand,  the  South  Sea  Islander,  the  American 
Indian  ?  The  missionaries  found  them  there.  .  .  .  The 
story  of  Jason  and  Medea  we  find  in  Japan,  among  the 
Eskimo,  among  the  Bushmen,  the  Samoyeds  and  the 
Zulus,  as  well  as  in  Hungarian,  Magyar,  Celtic,  and 
other  European  household  tales." 

It  is  the  Roads.  "  I  see  the  Roads  glinmier  up 
out  of  the  morning  twilight  with  the  many  men,  like 
ants,  coming  and  going  upon  them  ;  meeting,  passing, 
overtaking  ;  knights,  merchants,  carriers,  justiciars, 
King's  messengers ;  friars,  pardoners,  minstrels, 
beggar-men  ;  it  is  noticeable  how  many  of  the  great 
books  of  the  world — ^the  Odyssey,  the  Mneid,  the 
Canterbury  Tales,  Bon  Quixote,  The  Pilgrim'' s  Progress, 
Gil  Bias,  Pickwick,  and  The  Cloister  and  the  Hearth — 
are  books  of  wayfaring."  He  might  have  added 
Lavengro,  Romany  Rye,  The  Path  to  Rome,  Travels  on  a 
Donkey  in  the  Cevennes,  An  Inland  Voyage,  and  half 
a  hundred  more.  The  recipe  of  a  good  book  would 
seem  to  be,  plenty  of  food,  plenty  of  travel. 

"  In  the  conamerce  of  thought  the  true  carrier  is 
neither  the  linotype  machine,  nor  the  telegraph  at  the 
nearest  post  office,  nor  the  telephone  at  your  elbow, 
nor  any  such  invented  convenience  :  but  even  such 
a  wind  as  carries  the  seed  ;  the  old,  subtle,  winding, 
caressing,  onmipresent  wind  of  man's  aspiration.  For 
the  secret — which  is  also  the  reward — of  all  learning 
lies  in  the  passion  for  the  search." 


"  Q  "  AS  CRITIC  203 

On  the  much  vexed  question  of  ballads  "  Q  "  has 
much  that  is  interesting  to  say  :  he  ridicules  the  idea 
of  communal  authorship  thus  :  "If  you  think  a  ballad 
can  be  composed  by  public  meeting,  call  a  public 
meeting,  and  try  !  In  human  experience  poetry  doesn't 
get  written  in  that  way  :  it  requires  an  author. 
These  ballads,  though  overlaid  by  improvements,  are 
things  of  genius,  individual."  On  the  other  hand,  he 
realises  that  "  the  really  important  point  about  ballads 
has  nothing  to  do  with  '  who  wrote  them  ?  '  even  if 
that  could  be  discovered  at  this  time  of  day.  It 
matters  very  little  to  us,  at  any  rate,  if  they  were 
written  by  the  people.  What  gives  them  their  singu- 
larity of  nature  is  that,  whoever  wrote  them,  wrote 
them  for  the  people." 

As  to  what  a  ballad  is  Professor  Ker  says  that  "  a 
ballad  is  an  idea,  a  poetical  form,  which  can  take  up 
any  matter  and  does  not  leave  that  matter  as  it  was 
before :  a  ballad  is  Sir  Patrick  Spens,  The  Douglas 
Tragedy,  Childe  Maurice,  and  things  of  that  sort." 

Janet  has  kilted  her  green  kirtle 

A  little  abune  her  knee  ; 
And  she  has  snooded  her  yellow  hair 

A  little  abune  her  bree, 

And  she  is  on  to  Miles  Cross 
As  fast  as  she  can  hie. 

About  the  dead  hour  o'  the  night 

She  heard  the  bridles  ring  ; 
And  Janet  was  as  glad  at  that 

As  any  earthly  thing. 

And  first  gaed  by  the  black,  black  steed. 
And  syne  gaed  by  the  brown  ; 

But  fast  she  gript  the  milk-white  steed 
And  pu'd  the  rider  down. 


204         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

They  shaped  him  in  her  arms  at  last 

A  mother-naked  man ; 
She  cast  her  mantle  over  him, 

And  sae  her  love  she  wan. 

That  is  what  a  ballad  is,  also  : 

Then  up  bespake  the  bride's  mother — 
She  never  was  known  to  speak  so  free — 

"  Ye'll  not  forsake  my  only  daughter 
Though  Susie  Pye  has  crossed  the  sea." 

And: 

Half-owre,  half-owre  to  Aberdour 

'Tis  fifty  fathom  deep  ; 
And  there  lies  gude  Sir  Patrick  Spens 
Wi'  the  Scots  lords  at  his  feet. 

It  is  quite  clear,  quite  unmistakable,  but  absolutely 
defiant  of  analysis.  That  is  why  it  is  impossible  to 
imitate  it :  that  is  why  Scott's,  Coleridge's,  Kipling's, 
Rossetti's,  and  Morris's  ballads  are  not  ballads  at  all. 
It  must  be  remembered  that  they  were  never  "  litera- 
ture "  until  Bishop  Percy  in  1765  started  apologetically 
to  make  them  so. 

The  extraordinary  rapidity  of  movement  that  is  so 
marked  a  characteristic  of  ballads  is  well  noted  by 
"  Q  "  :  "  Almost  always  you  will  find  the  intervals 
hiuTied  over." 

There  then  comes  the  question  of  geographical 
limits  :  it  is  significant  that  most  of  the  ballads  we 
now  know  are  Border  ballads,  songs  of  fights  between 
Douglases  and  Percies  :  "  We  do  our  scientific  sense 
some  help  by  fixing  the  best  of  this  form  of  our  litera- 
ture upon  a  certain  folk  inhabiting  a  certain  limited 
region,  which  we  find  to  lie  between  the  Forth  and 
the  Tyne."  Chronologically,  too,  it  is  possible  to 
draw  certain  definite  lines  :    almost  all  the  evidence 


"  Q  "  AS  CRITIC  205 

shows  that  the  ballad  with  the  impress  we  know  upon 
it,  rose,  flourished,  and  declined  within  the  period 
1350  and  1550.  The  ballad  never  philosophised  its 
emotion.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  "  Q  "  recognises 
that  ballads  are  "  genuine  poetry,  peculiar  poetry, 
sincere  poetry,"  he  does  not  adore  them  idolatrously. 

"  They  appealed  in  their  day  to  something  young 
in  the  national  mind.  They  have  all  the  winning 
grace  of  innocence  :  but  they  cannot  scale  the  great 
poetical  heights  any  more  than  mere  innocence  can 
scale  the  great  spiritual  heights." 

The  Horatian  Model  in  English  Verse  is  an  attempt 
to  show  how  often  English  writers  have  caught  the 
very  trick  of  the  Latin  master  :  it  succeeds  more  in 
driving  us  back  to  re-read  our  original  than  in  breaking 
fresh  ground  with  his  imitators  and  translators.  "  Q  " 
has,  as  usual,  some  trenchant  comments  to  make  on 
satire  in  general.  "  Satire  has  come  to  connote  some- 
thing of  savagery,  of  castigation  :  to  be  indignant  is 
better  than  to  be  cynical :  to  rage  is  manlier  than  to 
sneer.  Yet  to  be  constitutionally  an  angry  man — to 
commence  satirist  and  set  up  in  business  as  a  pro- 
fessionally angry  man — has  always  seemed  to  me  more 
than  a  trifle  absurd.  .  .  .  But  the  satires  of  Horace 
were  not  satires  in  this  sense  at  all.  With  a  man  of 
Horace's  temperament  such  sermones  could  not  miss 
to  be  urbane,  gossipy,  sententious  a  little,  wise  a 
great  deal,  smooth  in  address,  pointed  in  wit  .  .  . 
and  these  qualities  have  been  achieved  by  his  English 
and  French  descendants."  Horace  invented  a  style, 
and  to  invent  a  style  is  in  itself  a  triumph  of  genius  : 
as  Newman  said,  "it  is  like  crossing  a  country  before 
roads  are  made  between  place  and  place."  But  the 
truly  magical  secret  of  Horace  lies  in  his  Odes.    "  There 


206  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

haunts  that  witchery  of  style  which,  the  moment  you 
lose  grasp  of  it,  is  dissipated  into  thin  air  and  eludes 
your  concentrated  pursuit :  ...  its  clarity,  its  nicety, 
its  felicity  of  phrase,  its  instinct  for  the  appropriate,  its 
delicate  blend  of  the  scholar  and  the  gentleman  all 
give  his  verses  such  a  diutumity  of  charm  that  '  men 
so  wide  apart  in  temperament  and  spirit  as  Newman 
and  Gibbon,  Bossuet  and  Voltaire,  Pope  and  Words- 
worth, Thackeray  and  Gladstone,  Rabelais  and  Charles 
Lamb,  seem  all  to  have  felt  in  Horace  a  like  attraction, 
and  to  have  made  of  him  an  intimate  friend.'  The 
magnetic  attraction  to  which  such  names  as  these 
collectively  testify  is  a  phenomenon  of  sufficient  rarity 
to  invite  some  attempt  to  explain  it." 

Of  all  the  English  poets  the  one  who,  but  for  a 
stroke  of  madness,  would  have  become  our  English 
Horace,  in  "  Q's  "  mind,  was  Cowper.  "  He  had  the 
wit,  with  the  underlying  moral  seriousness.  You  will 
find  almost  everywhere  in  his  poetry  hints  of  the 
Horatian  touch.  Moreover  he  had  originality  along 
with  the  Horatian  sense  of  the  appropriate." 

But  "  the  Horatian  phrase  is  everywhere  in  our 
best  literature — even  in  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer. 
See  how  it  leaps  out  in  the  Te  Deum,  '  When  thou 
hadst  overcome  the  sharpness  of  death. ^  " 

"  Q  "  finds  the  metrical  secret  of  Horace  in  the  fact 
that  "  he  chose  the  most  tantalisingly  difficult  foreign 
metres,  and  with  consummate  skill  tamed  them  to  the 
Latin  tongue." 

If  any  one  feels  that  he  has  the  Horatian  genius  he 
commends  to  him  the  experiment  of  rendering  it  in 
delicate  metres  divorced  from  rhyme,  and  quotes  as 
a  supreme  example  Collins's  Ode  to  Evening.  There, 
if  anywhere  in  English  poetry,  he  will  find  the  secret 
of  Horace's  "  falling  close." 


"  Q  "  AS  CRITIC  207 

In  his  lecture  On  the  Terms  "  Classical "  and  "  Roman- 
tic,''^  he  bids  us  dismiss  the  words  out  of  our  vocabulary 
for  a  while,  together  with  all  such  phrases  as  "  ten- 
dencies," "  influences,"  "  revivals,"  and  "  revolts." 
He  selects  Dr  Georg  Brandes  as  the  arch-offender 
among  critics  in  this  respect,  as  a  man  who  ascribes 
all  works  of  genius  to  tendencies  rather  than  to  indi- 
vidual writers.  In  everything  classical  we  find  a 
romantic  strain,  and  in  the  most  romantic  writers  we 
see  the  classical  touch. 

The  whole  trouble  amounts  to  this  :  "  Some  men 
have  naturally  a  sense  of  form  stronger  than  their  sense 
of  colour  :  some  men  have  a  sense  of  colour  stronger 
than  their  sense  of  form.  In  proportion  as  they  indulge 
their  proclivities  or  neglect  to  discipline  them,  one 
man  will  be  a  classical,  the  other  a  romantic,  writer." 

It  is  significant  to  notice  that  "  Q  "  comes  into  line 
with  all  the  moderns  in  praising  that  long-neglected 
genius  of  the  seventeenth  century,  John  Donne :  "  Truly 
he  was  a  great  man  :  one  of  the  greatest  figures  in 
English  literature,  albeit  perhaps  the  worst  understood : 
he  wrote  some  of  the  most  magnificent  and  astounding 
pages  in  our  literature,  if  we  know  where  to  look  for 
them."  His  poems  tell  us  autobiographically  of  wild 
living  and  licentiousness :  they  exhibit  him  as  in- 
satiable alike  in  carnal  and  intellectual  curiosity  : 
mad  to  possess  and  violent  in  reaction,  cruelly,  cyni- 
cally cold  in  analysing  the  ashes  of  disgust : 

Th'  expense  of  spirit  in  a  waste  of  shame 
Is  lust  in  action  ;  and,  till  action,  lust 
Is  perjured,  murderous,  bloody,  full  of  blame. 
Savage,  extreme,  rude,  cruel,  not  to  trust ; 
Enjoy'd  no  sooner  but  despised  straight ; 
Past  reason  hunted  ;  and,  no  sooner  had. 
Past  reason  hated  .  .  . 


208  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

"  Nowhere  lives  a  woman  true,  and  faire  "  is  his 
verdict  on  the  other  sex  :  he  shared  the  triumph  of 
the  Cadiz  exploit  and  visited  Italy  and  Spain,  and 
on  his  return  contracted  a  clandestine  marriage  with 
the  sixteen-year-old  daughter  of  Sir  George  More. 
"  The  wandering  bark  of  his  love  had  found  a  pole- 
star  in  his  most  adored  wife,  and  he  burnt  up  past 
sins  on  the  altar  of  a  single  devotion."  At  the  per- 
suasion of  King  James  he  took  Orders  in  1615  :  two 
years  later  his  wife  died  :  and  in  1621  he  was  made 
Dean  of  St  Paul's  at  forty-eight,  the  most  solitary, 
melancholy  man  of  his  age.  .  .  .  And  "  Q  "  would 
have  us  believe  that  it  is  here  that  we  shall  find  the 
great  Donne,  the  real  Donne,  not  in  his  verse,  but 
in  his  sermons,  *'  which  contain  the  most  magnificent 
prose  ever  uttered  from  an  English  pulpit,  if  not  the 
most  magnificent  prose  ever  spoken  in  our  tongue." 
He  had  no  architectonic  gift  in  poetry :  in  poetry  the 
skill  that  articulated,  knit,  compacted  his  sermons, 
and  marched  his  arguments  as  warriors  in  battalion, 
completely  forsook  him.  But  his  verse  did  smash  up 
an  effete  tradition.  It  smashed  up  Petrarch-in- 
English  :  it  did  so  influence  English  verse  for  at 
least  half  a  century,  that,  like  a  glove  of  civet,  it 
scents  every  garment  you  take  out  of  the  wardrobe. 

Donne  was  an  imperfect  poet  because  (1)  he  had 
no  constant  vision  of  beauty ;  (2)  he  had  too  busy 
an  intellect,  which  ever  tempted  him  to  be  breaking 
his  shins  on  his  own  wit :  in  lines,  and  short  passages, 
he  could  be  exquisite : 

I  long  to  talke  with  some  old  lover's  ghost 
Who  dyed  before  the  God  of  Love  was  borne 

is  a  case  in  point,  but  more  than  half  the  time  we 
see  the  man  sweating  and  straining  at  his  forge  and 


"  Q  "  AS  CRITIC  209 

bellows  :  later  in  life  his  mind  played  more  and  more 
constantly  upon  death  and  its  physical  horrors  ;  he  even 
slept  for  years  with  a  full-length  portrait  of  himself 
(for  which  he  stood  on  an  urn,  naked,  clad  in  a  winding- 
sheet)  laid  alongside  his  bed  :  "  reflex  action  of  car- 
nality in  exitu"  comments  "  Q." 

In  his  second  lecture  on  Seventeenth-Century  Poets 
(Herbert  and  Vaughan)  "  Q "  attempts  to  give  a 
true  meaning  to  mysticism.  "  The  function  of  all  true 
art  is  to  harmonise  the  soul  of  man  with  the  im- 
mense Universe  surrounding  him  :  the  universe  is  not 
a  chaos,  but  a  harmony,  which  cannot  be  appre- 
hended at  all  except  as  it  is  focussed  upon  the  eye, 
intellect,  and  soul  of  man  :  the  poet  aspires  to  appre- 
hend :  the  central  tenet  of  the  mystics  lies  in  getting 
to  be  like  God  :  they  wait,  receptacles  of  the  divine 
passing  breath  :  the  poet  merely  by  waiting  and 
trusting  arrives  per  saltum  at  truths  to  which  the 
philosopher,  pack-laden  and  varicose  upon  the  military 
road  of  logic,  can  never  reach  :  all  mystics  have  been 
curiously  gracious  and  yet  more  curiously  happy  men  : 
they  have  a  propensity  to  deal  in  symbols,  to  catch 
at  illustrations  which  to  them  seem  natural  enough, 
but  to  us  far-fetched,  conceited.  Donne  is  too  restless 
to  be  a  perfect  mystic  :  he  has  no  *  wise  passiveness.'  " 

Quite  otherwise  is  it  with  George  Herbert,  the 
priest  of  Bemerton,  who  studied  to  be  quiet,  of 
whom  the  critic  wrote  :  "  Nature  intended  him  for 
a  knight-errant,  but  disappointed  ambition  made  him 
a  saint " :  but  even  he  spoils  many  of  his  best 
lyrics  by  conceits.  In  Henry  Vaughan  we  find  traces 
of  Herbert's  influence  everywhere,  traces  which  at 
times  sink  to  downright  pilfering.  And  yet  this  most 
imitative  of  poets  "  is  actually  more  original,  and 
certainly  of  deeper  insight,  as  well  as  of  ampler,  more 

o 


210  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

celestial  range,  than  the  man  he  copied."  The  truth 
may  lie  in  the  fact  that  some  men  want  starting  : 
"  They  have  the  soluble  genius  within  them,  but  it 
will  not  crystallise  of  itself :  it  must  have  a  shape, 
a  mould  .  .  .  and  such  men  take  the  mould  supplied 
by  their  age." 

In  his  third  lecture  he  treats  of  Thomas  Traherne,  who 
confessed  "  I  chose  rather  to  live  upon  ten  pounds  a 
year,  and  to  go  in  leather  clothes,  and  feed  upon  bread 
and  water,  so  that  I  might  have  all  my  time  clearly  to 
myself,"  who  died  at  the  age  of  thirty-eight,  and 
whose  writings  were  lost  for  250  years,  and  onlyj^dis- 
covered  by  the  loving  energy  of  Bertram  Dobell. 
"  Of  Traherne,  the  first  and  last  word  is  that  he 
carries  into  a  sustained  ecstasy  this  adoration  of  the 
wisdom  of  childhood,"  as  this  extract  will  show  : 

"  The  streets  were  mine,  the  temple  was  mine,  the 
people  were  mine,  their  clothes  and  gold  and  silver 
were  mine,  as  much  as  their  sparkling  eyes,  fair  skins, 
and  ruddy  faces.  The  skies  were  mine,  and  so  were 
the  sun  and  moon  and  stars,  and  all  the  World  was 
mine  ;  and  I  the  only  spectator  and  en j  oyer  of  it  .  .  . 
so  that  with  much  ado  I  was  corrupted,  and  made 
to  learn  the  dirty  devices  of  this  world.  Which  now  I 
unlearn,  and  become,  as  it  were,  a  little  child  again 
that  I  may  enter  into  the  Kingdom  of  God." 

Centuries  of  Meditations  is  the  kind  of  book  that 
one  had  been  looking  for  all  one's  life,  certain  that 
it  must  exist,  but  ever  doomed  to  failure  in  the  search. 
If  you  still  haven't  read  it,  get  it  to-day  and  thank 
Heaven  for  Thomas  Traherne.  It  is  not  without  sig- 
nificance that  Donne,  Herbert,  Vaughan,  and  Tra- 
herne all  came  from  the  Welsh  Marches.  There  must 
be  something  in  "  the  Celtic  spirit  "  after  all.  In  like 
manner  most  of  us  owe  an  unpayable  debt  to  "  Q  " 


"  Q  "  AS  CRITIC  211 

for  introducing  us  to  lyrics  of  unsurpassed  loveliness, 
and  ballads  of  ineffable  charm  :  as  an  anthologist  we 
have  reverenced  him  all  our  lives  ...  it  was  only  to 
be  expected  that  he  would  find  something  for  us  in 
this  lecture  which  once  read  can  never  be  forgotten. 
Henry  King's  Exequy  on  his  Wife  cannot  be  quoted 
here,  but  it  would  be  worth  buying  Studies  in  Litera- 
ture for  the  sake  of  this  one  quotation,  even  if  the 
rest  of  the  volume  were  dull,  which  it  is  very  far  from 
being. 

In  discussing  Quarles,  "  Q "  points  out  how  the 
idea  of  a  Christ  bruising  His  feet  endlessly  over  stony 
places,  insatiate  in  search  of  lost  Man,  His  brother, 
or  the  lost  Soul,  His  desired  bride,  haunts  all  our 
mystical  poetry  from  the  fifteenth  century  down  to 
Francis  Thompson.  He  dismisses  the  quaint  metrical 
and  typographical  devices,  the  artificialities  and  affec- 
tations of  the  mystics  (on  which  we  are  inclined  to 
dwell  far  too  much)  in  a  paragraph  :  "  You  may  see 
.as  good  sights,  many  times,  in  Tarts,"  he  shrewdly 
says,  quoting  Bacon.  Every  one  is  ready  to  quote 
Crashaw's  lapses  :  fewer  are  ready  to  probe  beneath 
until  they  reach  such  a  flawless  stanza  as  this  : 

The  dew  no  more  will  weep 

The  primrose's  pale  cheek  to  deck. 

The  dew  no  more  will  sleep 
Nuzzled  in  the  lily's  neck  : 

Much  rather  would  it  tremble  here 

And  leave  them  both  to  be  thy  tear. 

But  "  Q,"  with  that  sterling  honesty  which  makes 
him  so  companionable  a  critic,  confesses  that  he  finds 
the  atmosphere  of  the  metaphysical  poets  too  rare, 
too  nebulous,  their  manna  too  ambrosial,  for  human 
nature's  daily  food.  "  I  want  Daphnis  at  the  spring, 
Rebecca  at  the  well,  Ruth  stretched  at  Boaz's  feet, 


212  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WTIITERS 

silent  in  the  sleeping  granary.  So  from  symposia  of 
these  mystics,  rapturous  but  jejune,  as  from  the  vege- 
tarian feasts  of  Eugenists  and  of  other  men  made 
perfect,  I  return  to  knock  in  at  the  old  tavern  with 
the  cosy  red  blinds,  where  I  may  meet  Don  Quixote, 
Sancho  Panza,  Douglas  and  Percy,  Mr.  Pickwick  and 
Sam  Weller,  Romeo  and  the  Three  Musketeers — above 
all,  Falstaff,  with  Mistress  Quickly  to  serve  me.  I 
want  the  personal — Shakespeare,  Johnson,  Goldsmith, 
Lamb,  among  men  ;  of  women  I  need  to  worship  no 
Saint  Teresa,  but  Miranda  the  maid,  Imogen  the  wife. 
•  .  .  For  we  come  out  of  earth  and  fall  back  to  earth  ; 
and  the  spring  of  our  craving  soars — ^though  it  reach 
to  God — on  the  homely  jet  of  our  geniture."  That 
is  fine  criticism,  finely  said,  but  it  is  only  half  the 
truth.     Remember  Po-Chii-i : 

Ever  since  the  time  when  I  was  a  lusty  boy 
Down  till  now  when  I  am  ill  and  old. 
The  things  I  have  cared  for  have  been  different  at 
different  times. 

There  are  times  when  we  all  tire  of  the  earthly  and 
the  full-blooded,  when  we  soar  ecstatically  in  the  very 
heavens  themselves  :  at  such  times  the  mystics  are 
the  only  people  who  can  satisfy  our  craving  :  Falstaff 
with  his  grossness  must  be  curtly  dismissed  :  we  are 
now  crowned  King,  Henry  V,  not  "  Hal,  sweet  Hal," 
the  buffoon  and  cheap  jester :  mystic  sweet  com- 
munion with  the  saints  is  our  need,  not  a  stoup  of 
sack  in  an  Eastcheap  tavern.  Such  moods  are  not 
common,  but  "  Q  "  ought  to  have  allowed  for  them. 

He  opens  his  lecture  On  George  Meredith's  Poetry 
with  a  well-deserved  rebuke  :  "  We  have  so  far  ignored 
academic  tradition,  and  dared  the  rage  of  school- 
masters as  to  open  the  study  of  English  down  to  our 


"  Q  "  AS  CRITIC  213 

own  times,  declining  to  allow  that  any  past  date  could 
be  settled  as  the  one  upon  which  English  literature 
took  to  its  bed,  and  expired,  and  was  beatified."  It 
is  surely  time  that  it  was  recognised  that  history  did 
not  cease  with  the  Reform  Bill,  or  literature  with 
Wordsworth.  Quite  half  the  enjoyment  to  be  got 
from  the  study  of  both  these  entrancing  subjects  lies 
in  linking  up  the  present  with  the  past  and  searching 
for  the  "  continuity."  In  order  that  the  average 
educated  Englishman  may  learn  to  write  English  as 
deftly,  as  scrupulously  as  the  average  educated 
Frenchman  writes  French,  to  have  at  least  an  equal 
respect  for  his  language,  it  is  necessary  that  he  should 
study  how  good  writers  to-day  are  adapting  the  lan- 
guage to  express  what  men  and  women  think  and  do  in 
our  time.  "  Q  "  does  not  attempt  to  defend  Meredith's 
obscurity,  but  he  does  ask  us  to  differentiate  between 
obscurity  and  ugliness,  which  is  valuable  advice. 
On  the  other  hand,  he  does  point  out  that  Meredith 
left  many  poems  unchallengeably  beautiful  which  are 
not  in  the  least  obscure.  He  quotes  Phoebus  with 
Admetus  in  full,  and  asks  us  to  go  on  from  Melampus, 
and  The  Day  of  the  Daughter  of  Hades  to  the  real 
heart  of  Meredith's  muse  in  The  fVoods  of  Westermain, 
Earth  and  Man,  A  Faith  on  Trial,  The  Empty  Purse, 
Night  of  Frost  in  May,  and  the  like.  "  The  juvenile 
poems  will  but  poorly  reward  you,  the  later  odes 
reflecting  French  history  should  be  deferred.  It  is 
rather  in  the  poems  named  above,  and  A  Reading  of 
Earth  and  A  Reading  of  Life,''  that  you  will  find  the 
essential  Meredith  .  .  .  the  teacher,  the  expositor. 
The  philosophy  of  Meredith  is  strong,  arresting,  ath- 
letic, lean,  hard,  wiry,  Stoical,  uncomfortable  ;  it  is 
reared  on  the  two  pillars  of  Faith  and  Love.  But 
the  Faith  differs  utterlv  from  the  Faith  which  sup- 


J14         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

ports  most  religions  :  he  finds  there  is  no  true  promise 
in  rehgious  promises  of  a  compensating  Hfe  beyond 
this  one  :  he  is  not  appalled  by  the  prospect  of  sinking 
back  and  dissolving  into  the  earth  of  which  we  are 
all  created  : 

Into  the  breast  that  gave  the  rose 
Shall  I  with  shuddering  fall  ? 

"  We  do  not  get  to  any  heaven  by  renouncing  the 
mother  we  spring  from."  To  be  true  sons  of  earth, 
our  mother  :  to  learn  of  our  dependence  on  her,  her 
lesson  :  to  be  frugal  of  self-consciousness  and  of  all 
other  forms  of  selfishness  :  to  live  near  the  bare 
ground,  and  finally  to  return  to  it  without  whining  : 
that  is  the  first  article  of  his  creed.  To  set  up  your 
hope  on  a  world  beyond  this  one  is  but '  a  bloodthirsty 
clinging  to  life  * — demanding  a  passport  beyond  our 
natural  term  :  transience,  to  be  gratefully  accepted, 
like  human  love,  for  transience :  earth  will  not 
coddle  : 

He  may  entreat,  aspire. 
He  may  despair,  and  she  has  never  heed  ; 
She,  drinking  his  warm  sweat,  will  soothe  his  need. 

Not  his  desire. 

Meredith  promises  nothing — ^nothing  beyond  the 
grave,  nothing  on  this  side  of  it  but  love  sweetening 
hard  fare. 

The  lecture  concludes  with  Love  in  the  Valley, 
quoted  in  full,  "  The  greatest  song  of  human  love  in 
our  language,  a  veritable  Song  of  Songs." 

In  The  Poetry  of  Thomas  Hardy  he  calls  attention 
to  the  rule  that  each  new  generation  turns  iconoclast 
on  its  father's  poetic  gods  :  "  To  dream  of  these 
things  [snatches  of  Morris,  Tennyson,  and  Browning] 


"  Q  "  AS  CRITIC  215 

and  to  awake  and  find  oneself  an  uncle — ^that  is  the 
common  lot."  So  as  a  corollary  it  follows  that 
**  yomig  poets  write  not  for  antiquity,  nor  for  middle 
age  :  all  that  we  (fathers  and  uncles)  can  do  is  to 
keep  our  hearts  as  fresh  as  we  may." 

The  point  now  to  be  discussed  is  what  Thomas 
Hardy  has  to  say  to  us,  the  youth  of  to-day  :  "  That 
his  Muse  is  predominantly  melancholy  I  brush  aside  as 
no  bar  at  all :  it  is  as  proper  to  youth  to  know  melan- 
choly as  it  is  to  have  raptures  :  only  to  middle  age 
is  it  granted  to  be  properly  cheerful.  ...  As  for 
Hardy's  pessimism,  that  does  not  consort  well  with 
youth,  but  it  always  challenges  it :  in  his  depths  the 
man  is  always  thinking,  and  his  perplexities,  being 
all -important  and  yet  unsolved,  are  by  you  to  be 
faced."  Hardy's  first  poems  were  stiff  and  awkward  : 
they  were  architectural  draughts  :  the  words  were 
hard  and  precise.  At  fifty  his  metrical  muscles  were 
stiff,  at  seventy  he  has  worked  them  supple.  As  a 
coimtryman  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  dig  vertically 
down  through  strata.  He  knows  the  woods  so  inti- 
mately that  his  ear  detects  and  separates  the  notes 
of  the  wind  as  it  soughs  in  oak,  hornbeam,  or  pine. 
He  knows  that  under  one  innocent-looking  thorn  such- 
and-such  a  parish  tragedy  was  enacted  :  his  country- 
man's heart  is  strangely  tender  :  above  all,  his  pity 
is  for  women  ;  his  soul  grows  to  abhor  the  duel  of 
sex :  "  poor  wounded  name  !  my  bosom  as  a  bed 
shall  lodge  thee."  His  indignation  is  noble  and 
chivalrous.  It  is  ironical  that  women  should  distrust 
Hardy's  irony  :  he  would  break  down  their  servility, 
and  they  eye  him  with  suspicion ;  but  his  creed 
differs  from  that  of  Meredith  in  that  it  is  childless, 
without  hope  :  incidentally  Hardy  is  obsessed  with 
irony  :   we  begin  to  say  to  ourselves,  "  These  things 


216  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

happen  :  but  in  any  such  crowd  they  never,  and  in 
no  life,  happen." 

It  is  good  to  listen  to  "  Q's  "  praise  of  The  Dynasts, 
*•  the  grandest  poetic  structure  planned  and  raised  in 
England  in  our  time,"  even  though  he  condemns 
much  of  the  verse  as  too  prosy. 

On  Coleridge  he  is  not  so  helpful :  lightly  skimming 
over  the  main  incidents  of  the  poet's  life  he  cannot 
help  wondering  what  Dorothy  Wordsworth  might  have 
made  of  him  as  his  wife,  but  it  is  pleasing  to  read  his 
rhapsodies  on  The  Ancient  Mariner :  "  Not  in  the  whole 
range  of  English  poetry — ^not  in  Shakespeare  himself — 
has  the  lyrical  genius  of  our  language  spoken  with  such 
a  note  :  its  music  is  as  effortless  as  its  imagery :  we 
forget  almost,  listening  to  the  voice,  that  there  are 
such  things  as  words,  and  we  should  call  that  voice 
seraphic." 

Again,  of  Christabel,  "  where  it  rings  true,  we  ask, 
was  there  ever  such  pure  romantic  music  ?  "  Of 
Kubla  Khan :  "  It  abides  the  most  entrancing  musical 
fragment  in  Enghsh  poetry." 

Returning  to  the  story  of  the  poet's  life  he  asks  us 
to  remember  that  even  in  the  lowest  depths  he  still 
fought,  and  in  the  end  he  did  emerge  with  the  victory. 
Also  let  us  note  how  the  essential  goodness  of  the 
man  shines  through  and  through  the  petty  quarrels 
and  misunderstandings  that  dogged  his  steps  :  how, 
in  almost  any  given  quarrel,  as  the  years  go  on,  we 
see  that  after  all  Coleridge  was  right.  In  justice,  and 
in  decency,  we  should  strive  to  imagine  Coleridge  as 
he  impressed  those  who  loved  him  : 

You  will  see  Coleridge — he  who  sits  obscure 
In  the  exceeding  lustre  and  the  pure 
Intense  irradiation  of  a  mind 
Which,  with  its  own  internal  lightning  blind. 


"  Q  "  AS  CRITIC  217 

Flags  wearily  through  darkness  and  despair — 
A  cloud-encircled  meteor  of  the  air, 
A  hooded  eagle  among  blinking  owls. 

Of  Matthew  Arnold  he  has  much  to  say  which  is 
shrewd  and  informing  :  "  He  was  never  popular,  and 
never  will  be  :  yet  no  one  can  say  that  his  poetry 
missed  its  mark.  He  was  a  serious  man  who  saw 
life  as  a  serious  business,  and  chiefly  relied  on  a  serene 
conmion  sense.  The  man  and  the  style  were  one. 
Alike  in  his  writings  and  his  life  he  observed  and 
preached  the  golden  mean.  It  is  important  to  remem- 
ber that  he  gained  the  world's  ear,  not  as  a  poet,  but 
as  a  critic,  by  treating  criticism  as  a  deliberate,  dis- 
interested art,  with  laws  and  methods  of  its  own,  and 
certain  standards  of  right  taste  by  which  the  quality 
of  any  writing,  as  literature,  might  be  tested.  When 
he  wrote  poetry  he  elaborately  assumed  the  singing- 
robe,  but  always  had  something  of  the  worldling 
mingled  with  the  bard  about  him.  Through  all  his 
work  there  runs  a  strain  of  serious,  elevated  thought, 
and  preserved  the  precepts  of  his  own  criticism  in 
observing  two  conditions  :  that  the  theme  must  be 
worth  saying,  and  that  it  must  be  worthily  written. 

"  Nature  is  always  behind  his  poetry  as  a  living 
background  .  .  .  and  this  sense  of  atmosphere  and 
of  background  gives  his  teaching  a  wonderful  com- 
prehension, within  its  range.  '  This,'  we  say,  '  is 
poetry  we  can  trust,  not  to  flatter  us,  but  to  sustain, 
console,'  but  if  the  reader  mistakes  it  for  the  last 
word  on  life  his  trust  in  it  will  be  illusory." 

His  essay  on  Swinburne  is  one  of  the  best  in  the 
book.  It  is  a  joy  to  find  a  modern  who  has  the 
honesty  to  write  of  him  in  such  glowing  terms  as 
these  :  "  The  real  marvel  of  Poems  and  Ballads  lay 
in  its  poetry^  as  in  that  lay  the  real  innovation.     Here 


218         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

was  a  man  who  had  suddenly  discovered  a  new  door 
and  thrust  it  open  upon  what  seemed  endless  -s  istas 
of  beauty.     Here  was  a  man  who  could  take  the 
language  and  convert  it  to  music  as  absolutely  fresh 
and  original,  as  it  was  patently  the  music  of  a  peer 
...  he  was  a  tremendous  force  in  poetry  :  the  force 
died  :   the  man  outlived  it :    he  has  left  an  indelible 
mark  on  English  verse :    but  he  who  had  inspired 
parodists  inniunerable,  and  many  pale  imitators,  has 
left  us  no  school  of  poets  :    upon  the  literature  of 
Victorian  England  he  made  an  amazing  irruption, 
and  passed.     His  genius  was  elfish  :   and  like  an  elf 
he  never  grew  up."     "  Q  "  runs  over  the  main  inci- 
dents of  his  life  with  subtle  skill,  stopping  to  marvel 
at  the  elfin  mystery  of  his  birth — the  child  of  a  British 
admiral  and  the  daughter  of  an  earl — asking  us  to 
note  that  all  his  literary  convictions  were  formed 
while  he  was  at  school,  that  Lamb's  Specimens  of  the 
English  Dramatic  Poets  and  the  Bible  were  his  great 
formative  influences,   that   his  lack  of  curiosity  in 
yoimger  men  may  explain  why  he  founded  no  school ; 
that  his  physical  courage  was  always  beyond  question, 
that  he  hated  Oxford,  that  he  fell  easily  into  the  Pre- 
Raphaelite  circle,  that  Richard  Burton  was  bad  for 
him,  that  Watts-Dunton  saved  his  life,  but  committed 
the  impardonable  fault  of  encouraging  him  to  sub- 
stitute rhetoric  for  poetry,  and  rhetoric  for  prose, 
that  the  irregularity  of  his  life  helped  towards  that 
ossification  which  overtook  his  genius  .  .  .  and  many 
other  things   which   materially   help   us   to   form   a 
complete  picture  of  the  great  poet  that  he  was,  and 
the  great  prose  wTiter  that  he  might  have  been. 

*'  I  don't  see  any  internal  centre  from  which  springs 
anything  that  he  does,"  writes  Meredith.  "  He  will 
make  a  great  name,  but  whether  he  is  to  distinguish 


"  Q  "  AS  CRITIC  219 

himself  solidly  as  an  artist  I  would  not  willingly 
prognosticate." 

"  Set  apart  Hertha,  that  glorious  poem,"  comments 
"  Q,"  "  Swinburne's  own  best  beloved,  and  all  the 
blazing  rhetoric  of  Songs  before  Sunrise  falls  short  of 
convincing  us  that  Swinburne  ever  understood  that 
greatest  of  all  maxims,  '  Look  into  thine  own  heart, 
and  write,'  or  even  that  he  had  a  real  heart  to  look 
into.  It  fails  to  persuade,  having  neither  sap  nor 
growth  nor  any  fecundity :  it  neither  kindles  us, 
where  it  is  right,  to  passionate  assent,  nor  moves  us 
to  forgive  where  it  is  \^Tong.  Over  it  all  lies  the 
coming  shadow  of  pedantry.  So  it  is  with  almost  all 
his  verse  after  Poems  and  Ballads,  Second  Series. 
Pegasus  seems  to  be  at  a  gallop  all  the  while,  but  his 
hoofs  are  for  ever  coming  down  in  the  same  place  :  and 
while  monotony  can  be  pleasant  enough,  nothing  in 
the  world  is  more  tedious  than  a  monotony  of  strain." 

*'  Q's "  paper  on  Charles  Reade  was  a  centenary 
article  for  The  Times^  Literary  Supplement,  and  nicely 
apportions  praise  and  blame  : 

"  When  he  '  got  going  '  upon  high,  straight,  epic 
narrative  no  one  of  his  contemporaries  could  touch 
him  :  but  he  had  a  fatal  talent  for  murdering  his  own 
reputation,  for  capping  every  triumph  with  an  instant 
folly,  and  these  follies  were  none  the  less  disastrous 
for  being  prompted  by  a  nature  at  once  large,  manly, 
generous,  tender,  incapable  of  self-control,  constitu- 
tionally passionate,  and  in  passion  as  blind  as  a  bat." 
He  was  privately  educated,  and  after  Oxford  met 
with  many  adventures,  the  most  important  of  which, 
from  the  point  of  view  of  his  art,  was  his  meeting 
with  the  actress  Mrs  Seymour  :  he  forthwith  saw  all 
his  novels  first  as  plays.  When  he  saw  men  and 
women  with  her  help  he  saw  them  as  dolls  maldng 


220         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

their  exits  and  their  entrances  behind  footlights.  The 
pity  is  the  greater  because  he  took  enormous  trouble 
to  be  true  to  fact,  and  above  everything  prided  him- 
self upon  being  therefore  true  to  nature  !  "  He  did, 
indeed,  distort  men,  women,  things,  but  he  always 
saw  them  as  tangible,  and  detested  all  writing  that 
was  nebulous,  high-faluting,  gushing.  His  style  is 
ever  lively  an,d  nervous  :  it  abounds  in  errors  of  taste  : 
but  it  is  always  vigorous,  compelling — ^the  style  of  a 
man."  The  amount  of  positive  good  he  did,  not  only 
towards  reforming  social  abuses  by  such  works  as 
It  Is  Never  Too  Late  To  Mend  and  Hard  Cash,  but  by 
pamphlets  and  letters,  would  amount  to  a  fine  total. 
..."  If  there  is  a  first  place  among  '  historical '  novels. 
The  Cloister  and  the  Hearth  and  Esmond  are  the  great 
challengers  for  it.  .  .  .  Reade,  vain  and  apt  to  write 
himself  down  in  the  act  of  writing  himself  up,  was  all 
but  consistently  the  worst  foe  of  his  own  reputation. 
It  will  probably  survive  all  the  worst  he  did,  because 
he  was  great  in  a  way,  and  entirely  sincere." 


II 

Having  now  examined  at  length  some  of  "  Q's  " 
suggestive  criticisms  on  divers  writer^  of  repute  it  is 
time  to  turn  our  attention  to  his  theories  on  Shake- 
speare's Workmanship,  and  try  to  find  out  under  his 
tutelage  exactly  what  Shakespeare  was  trying  to  do 
05  a  playwright.  He  begins  with  an  examination  of 
Macbeth,  and  an  excellently  told  account  of  the  con- 
ditions under  which  Shakespeare  built  his  plays.  From 
the  material  out  of  which  he  built  Macbeth,  "  Q " 
professes  to  find  Shakespeare's  secret.  "  I  mean  the 
element  of  the  supernatural  :   it  is  the  element  which 


"  Q  "  AS  CRITIC  221 

almost  every  commentator,  almost  every  critic,  has 
done  his  best  to  belittle.  .  .  .  Without  the  supernatural 
we  simply  have  a  sordid  story  of  a  disloyal  general 
murdering  his  king  :  and  it  is  worth  noticing  that 
instead  of  extenuating  Macbeth's  criminality  Shake- 
speare doubles  and  redoubles  it.  .  .  .  Deliberately  this 
magnificent  artist  locks  every  door  on  condonation, 
plunges  the  guilt  deep  as  hell,  and  then — ^tucks  up 
his  sleeves.  .  .  .  How  of  such  a  criminal  to  make  a  hero. 
There  is  only  one  way — ^to  make  him  proceed  to  his 
big  crime  under  some  fatal  hallucination,  the  hallucina- 
tion in  this  case  of  exchanging  moral  order  for  some- 
thing directly  opposed  to  it.  ...  '  Evil,  be  thou  my 
good.'  Hence  the  importance  of  the  witches  in  which 
the  mass  of  Elizabethan  audiences  would  devoutly 
believe.  Furthermore,  Shakespeare  conceived  the 
whole  play  in  darkness,  and  in  darkness — in  a  horror 
of  darkness  only — can  one  mistake  and  purchase  evil 
for  good.     '  Fair  is  foul  and  foul  is  fair.'  " 

After  commenting  on  the  relevance  of  the  knocking 
on  the  gate  "  Q  "  passes  on  to  discuss  the  punctum 
indifferens,  the  Point  of  Rest,  Banquo  the  ordinary 
man  as  a  foil  to  Macbeth,  and  thence  to  the  oft- 
discussed  irony  which  prevails  throughout.  It  is  an 
ingenious  essay,  and  in  bringing  into  prominence  the 
supernatural  element  certainly  sheds  a  fresh  light  on 
one  of  Shakespeare's  most  perfectly  conceived  dramas. 

In  the  chapter  on  A  Midsummer  NighVs  Dream  he 
runs  through  Shakespeare's  pet  devices,  that  of  the 
woman  disguised  in  man's  apparel,  of  working  the 
plot  upon  a  shipwreck,  of  the  jealous  husband  or 
lover,  and  the  woman  foully  misjudged,  of  the  trick 
of  the  potion  which  arrests  life  without  slaying  it, 
and  so  on. 

"  Shakespeare  having  once  employed  a  stage  device 


222  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

with  some  degree  of  success  had  never  the  smallest 
scruple  about  using  it  again.  I  see  him  as  a  magnifi- 
cently indolent  man,  not  agonising  to  invent  new 
plots,  taking  old  ones  as  clay  to  his  hands  ;  anon 
unmaking,  remoulding,  reinspiring  it.  We  know  for 
a  fact  that  he  worked  upon  old  plays,  old  chronicles, 
other  men's  romances.  .  .  .  Imagine,  then,  a  young 
playwright  commissioned  to  write  a  wedding  play  : 
his  mind  works  somewhat  as  follows  : 

"  A  wedding  calls  for  poetry — I  long  to  fill  a  play 
with  poetry  .  .  .  mistaken  identity  is  a  trick  I  know 
...  in  which  I  am  known  to  shine  ...  if  I  could 
only  make  it  poetical  I  ...  a  pair  of  lovers  ?  For 
mistaken  identity  that  means  two  pairs  of  lovers  .  .  . 
I  like,  too,  that  situation  of  the  scorned  lady  following 
her  sweetheart.  ...  I  must  use  that  again — lovers 
mistaking  one  another  .  .  .  scorned  lady  following  the 
scomer  .  .  .  wandering  through  a  wood  .  .  .  yes — 
and  by  night :  this  play  has  to  be  written  for  a 
bridal  eve — a  night  for  lovers — a  summer's  night — 
a  midsummer's  night — ^the  moon — er — and — oh — of 
course — fairies — fairies  full  of  mischief  and  for  a 
wedding,  too — Interiude — we  must  have  an  Interiude 
— suppose  we  make  a  set  of  clowns  perform  the  Inter- 
lude and  get  them  chased  by  the  fairies  ...  gross 
flesh  and  gossamer. 

"  I  suggest  that  we  can  immensely  increase  our 
delight  in  Shakespeare  and  strengthen  our  under- 
standing of  him  if,  as  we  read  him,  we  keep  asking 
ourselves  how  the  thing  was  done^ 

Even  if  "  Q "  has  not  discovered  Shakespeare's 
secret,  he  has  divulged  his  own  :  we  feel  that  we  have 
been  allowed  to  pry  behind  the  scenes  and  see,  at 
any  rate,  how  one  artist  sets  to  work,  even  though 
we  do  not  concede  that  Shakespeare  worked  thus. 


"  Q  "  AS  CRITIC  228 

"  Barring  the  merchant  himself,"  says  "  Q,"  in  his 
lecture  on  The  Merchant  of  Venice ^  "  a  merely  static 
figure,  and  Shylock,  who  is  meant  to  be  cruel,  every 
one  of  the  dramatis  personas  |s  either  a  '  waster  '  or  a 
'  rotter  '  or  both,  and  cold-hearted  at  that  ...  it  is 
interesting  to  think,  that  while  character  reigns  in 
drama,  if  one  thing  be  more  certain  than  another  it  is 
that  a  predatory  young  gentleman  such  as  Bassanio 
would  not  have  chosen  the  leaden  casket.  .  .  .  This 
flaw  in  characterisation  goes  right  down  through  the 
workmanship  of  the  play.  .  .  .  Shakespeare's  first 
task  as  an  artist  was  to  distract  attention  from  the 
monstrosities  and  absurdities  in  the  plot.  Get  the 
Trial  Scene  (for  which  there  ought  to  be  a  close  season) 
back  into  focus  and  note  how  absolutely  real  and 
likely  is  the  opening  of  the  play  :  there  is  nothing 
about  any  pound  of  flesh  in  it,  there  is  not  a  word 
about  a  casket :  by  the  time  that  the  incredibilities 
are  introduced  Shakespeare  has  us  at  his  mercy  :  all 
the  characters  are  so  real  to  us  that  we  have  no  choice 
but  to  accept  all  the  incredibilities  to  come." 

There  is  much  wisdom  in  his  contention  that 
Shakespeare  was  in  such  a  hurry  to  get  to  the  "  Forest 
of  Arden  "  that  he  made  his  opening  scenes  of  As  You 
Like  It  dull  and  heavy,  and  wrote  them  carelessly, 
as  there  is  in  his  qualified  approval  of  the  play  as  a 
whole.  "  Full  though  it  is  of  life  and  gaiety  and 
exquisite  merriment  it  does  not  quite  reach  per- 
fection." In  the  creation  of  Falstaff  we  read : 
"  Shakespeare  set  up  a  permanent  artistic  principle 
in  the  treatment  of  history  by  fiction,  the  principle 
that  your  best  protagonists  are  invented  men  and 
women — spawns  in  the  game — upon  whose  actions 
and  destinies  you  can  make  the  great  events  play  at 
wilL" 


224  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

In  the  sombre  tetralogy  then  of  stately  wooden 
personages  following  high  selfish  ambitions  Shake- 
speare thrusts  the  jollity  of  common  folk  by  taking  a 
leaf  out  of  the  interludes  :  Gluttony  becomes  Falstaff, 
and  Drunkenness  Bardolph  :  the  whole  Elizabethan 
drama  is  in  ferment,  yeasting  up  from  type  to  in- 
dividual. Prince  Hal  has  to  be  converted  from  scape- 
grace to  ideal  warrior-king.  Into  Falstaff  is  packed 
all  that  is  sensual,  all  that  would  drag  the  Prince  down, 
but  it  must  be  remembered  that  no  true  artist  de- 
velops or  fashions  a  real  character,  once  brought  to 
birth,  any  more. than  a  mother  thenceforth  develops 
or  fashions  a  child  :  he  was  possessed  by  him  far  more 
than  he  possessed  him.  As  for  Henry  V  ...  we 
feel  as  Ha^litt  said,  that  by  the  time  he  has  finished 
with  him,  Shakespeare  has  made  Falstaff  the  better 
man. 

Some  sixty  pages  are  devoted  to  an  analysis  of 
Hamlet,  which  contain,  in  spite  of  the  mass  of  literature 
that  has  been  written  on  the  subject,  much  that  is 
new  and  helpful. 

"  To  understand  Hamlet,  the  best  way  is  to  see  it 
acted  on  the  stage  ;  a  second  best  way  is  to  read  it  by 
ourselves,  surrendering  ourselves  to  it  as  a  new  thing, 
as  childishly  as  any  one  pleases.  Take  Hamlet  as  a 
new  thing."  Again  :  "It  can  be  counted  on,  above 
any  other  play,  to  fill  the  house.  .  .  .  Whenever  any 
actor  comes  to  it  he  always  plays  Hamlet  success- 
fully. I  suggest  that  all  actors  have  made  a  success 
in  Hamlet  simply  because  it  was  there  all  the  time, 
simply  because  there  never  was  any  mystery,  and 
consequently  no  secret  heart  to  pluck  out.  One 
reason  for  this  opinion  is  that  it  has  never  been  a 
test  of  the  highest  art  to  be  unintelligible.  It  is 
rather  the  last  triumph  of  a  masterpiece  that  all  men 


"  ^  "  AS  CRITIC  225 

in  their  degree  can  understand  and  enjoy  it.  Does  the 
man  in  the  street  pay  to  see  something  he  cannot 
understand  ?  He  goes  to  Hamlet  because  it  is  an 
amazingly  fine  play.  The  very  first  scene  is  an 
astounding  achievement,  preparing  the  mind  for  the 
unfolding  of  some  crime  :  an  abyss  of  horror  is  half 
opened  to  us,  and  then  comes  the  subtlest  of  comedy 
in  the  pratings  of  the  worldly-wise  Polonius  and 
Laertes  to  Ophelia,  comedy  on  the  very  edge  of  deep 
tragedy." 

Coming  to  the  question  of  Hamlet's  "  madness," 
"  Q  "  calls  attention  to  two  points  :  (i)  the  Eliza- 
bethan audiences  would  not  be  sympathetic  to  an 
exhibition  of  real  madness ;  (ii)  no  doctor  could 
possibly  grant  a  certificate  of  insanity  to  such  a  man 
as  Hamlet.  His  mother  and  Horatio  know  better. 
It  is  true  that  he  was  beside  himself — ^ridden  by 
furious  disgust  of  the  lechery  that  can  inhabit 
woman,  much  as  Shakespeare  himself  must  have  been 
to  write  as  he  did  in  Troilus,  Othello,  and  Lear. 

Hamlet  loves  Ophelia,  but  the  discovery  of  his 
mother's  lust  drives  him  into  a  loathing  perversion  of 
mind  against  all  women,  and  especially  towards  this 
single  maid  of  his  choice. 

"  Q  "  metes  out  but  short  shrift  to  those  commenta- 
tors who  want  to  know  why  Hamlet  did  not  hurry  to 
his  revenge  at  once. 

^  *'  One  meets  these  men  going  to  the  University 
Sermon  or  shuffling  along  upon  some  other  blameless 
errand,  and  .  .  .  any  one  of  these  Harry  Hotspurs 
will  have  killed  him  some  six  or  seven  dozen  Scots  at  a 
breakfast,  washed  his  hands,  and  said  to  his  wife  : 
*  Fie  upon  this  quiet  life  1  I  want  work.'  .  .  .  Why 
should  a  man  like  Hamlet,  noble,  gentle,  thoughtful, 
scrupulous,  not  shrink  from  the  deed  ?  " 

p 


226  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  ^VRITERS 

It  wiU  be  news  to  many  to  learn  that  in  the  original 
Belleforest  made  Ophelia  a  courtesan  and  specially  used 
her  as  a  decoy  to  entrap  Hamlet  into  betraying  his 
design,  but  both  Horatio  and  she  gave  the  game  away. 
"  Being  an  indolent  man  Shakespeare  failed  to  remove 
or  to  recast  some  sentences  which,  cruel  enough 
even  when  spoken  to  a  woman  of  easy  virtue,  are 
intolerable  when  cast  at  Ophelia." 

The  lecture  concludes  with  a  brilliant  defence  of  the 
pliant  capacity  of  blank  verse  as  the  ideal  vehicle  for 
dramatic  usage. 

In  Sfiakespeare's  Later  Workmanship  he  brings  out 
many  features  which  have  escaped  other  critics :  but  he 
does  well  to  call  attention  to  the  outstanding  fact  about 
the  later  plays,  that  the  hard  shadows  have  all  melted, 
all  the  passion,  cynicism,  and  fierce  judgment  fade  into 
a  benign,  permeating,  charitable  sunset  .  .  .  every 
critic  has  noted  this  mellowly  romantic  atmosphere, 
that  every  one  of  these  plays  ends  happily,  that  they 
all  show  a  conmion  disobedience  to  what  is  called 
"  Unity  of  Time,"  as  is  inevitable  when  the  process  of 
cooling,  of  appeasement,  of  repentance,  and  of  for- 
giveness has  to  be  shown.  It  may  be  that  having 
triumphed  in  the  possible,  this  magnificent  workman 
grew  discontented  and  started  out  to  conquer  the 
impossible  :  so  he  set  out  to  show  hirnian  forgiveness, 
such  forgiveness  as  Imogen's,  which  has  something 
nobler  in  it  than  any  revenge,  even  than  God's 
revenge  against  murder. 

"  Do  we  not  feel^  that  though  we  may  talk  of  God's 
being  injured,  insulted,  woimded  by  our  sins,  He 
cannot  be  injured  by  Posthumus's  cruel  wrong  as 
Imogen  is  injured  ?  It  costs  Him  so  much  less.  It 
cost  Imogen  all  she  had  in  the  world." 

The  Shakespeare  of  the  later  plays  who  deals  with 


"  Q  "  AS  CRITIC  227 

atonement  and  reconciliation  was  not  necessarily  a 
weaker  workman  than  the  Shakespeare  who  triumphed 
in  Macbeth  and  Othello. 

"  Q  "  asks  us  to  notice  that  every  artist  of  the  first 
class  tires  of  repeating  his  successes,  but  never  of 
repeating  his  experiments.  Your  inventive  master 
never  cares  for  a  success  but  as  a  step  to  something 
further.  What  he  achieves  may  be  unworthy  of  his 
powers,  but  he  is  still  trying  :  he  has  the  divinest  of 
discontent,  discontent  with  achievement. 

In  point  of  fact,  the  workmanship  of  Cymbeline  is 
masterly,  and  the  final  scene  almost  the  last  word  in 
dramatic  skill ;  nine-tenths  of  the  weakness  of 
Pericles  is  most  likely  not  chargeable  to  Shakespeare 
at  all.  It  must  be  remembered,  too,  that  while 
Shakespeare  was  writing,  the  scenic  resources  of  the 
stage  were  being  steadily  developed  ;  moreover,  the 
masque  was  coming  more  and  more  into  fashion,  both 
items  to  be  reckoned  with  when  we  come  to  sum  up 
his  latest  achievements. 

The  critic  makes  a  valiant  effort  to  vindicate 
Cymbeline  from  the  heaped-up  charges  brought 
against  it  by  Doctor  Johnson ;  as  "  Q "  says : 
"  There  is  a  truth  of  imagination,  a  truth  of  emotion, 
and  a  truth  of  fact."  The  fact  that  stands  out  about 
Cymbeline  is  the  complete  perfection  of  Imogen,  "  the 
most  adorable  woman  ever  created  by  God  or  man." 
When  we  start  picking  Cymbeline  to  pieces  we  find 
ourselves  disheartened ;  Cymbeline  is  an  inferior 
Lear,  lachimo  an  inferior  lago,  Posthumus  an 
inferior  Othello ;  Cymbeline  is  constructed  out  of 
fragments,  but  what  about  the  total  effect  ?  "  Why 
on  earth  should  it  be  a  reproach  against  Cymbeline 
that  in  Lear  Shakespeare  did  something  better  than 
thisy  in  Othello  something  better  than  that,  when  out  of 


228  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

the  inferior  this  and  that  he  has  built  the  incomparable 
Imogen  ? "  Johnson  made  too  much  of  the  in- 
congruities ;  "  Q's "  complaint  lies  against  the 
complexity  of  the  plot. 

In  The  Winter^s  Tale  he  asks  us  to  believe  that 
Shakespeare  was  attempting  to  work  into  one  drama 
two  different  stories  in  two  separate  categories  of 
Art ;  in  a  world  where  Nature  mixes  comedy  with 
tragedy,  Art  must  always  be  impatient  of  hard 
definitions ;  the  fault  lay  not  in  Shakespeare's  attempt 
to  do  this,  but  in  the  astounding  carelessness  which 
he  showed.  Why  did  he  take  no  trouble  to  make 
Leontes'  jealousy  credible  ?  WTiy  bring  in  the 
naughty  superfluity  of  the  bear  to  polish  off  Anti- 
gonus,  unless  the  Bear-pit  at  Southwark  had  a  tame 
animal  to  let  which  the  Globe  used  as  a  bait  to  draw 
the  public  ?  What  possible  difference  could  Autolycus 
make  to  the  action  ?  Why  was  the  Recognition  scene 
scamped  ?  The  truth  is  we  never  think  of  the  total 
play,  but  ever  of  separate  scene  after  separate  scene, 
particularly  the  unapproachable  one  in  which  Ilorizel 
and  Perdita  find  themselves  the  centre,  being  young 
and  innocent  and  in  love. 

"  Q's  "  first  lecture  on  The  Tempest  is  an  admirable 
r6sum6  of  the  controversy  which  has  raged  so  long 
over  the  date  of  the  play,  reviving  the  strange  story 
of  the  forger,  J.  P.  Collier,  and  the  misjudged  Peter 
Conningham,  and  incidentally  upsets  the  theory  that 
The  Tempest  was  written  to  celebrate  the  wedding  of 
that  wonderful  woman,  Elizabeth  of  Bohemia.  "  Q  " 
then  asks  us,  as  usual,  to  test  the  play  by  its  work- 
manship ;  first  there  is  the  identity  between  The 
Winter^ s  Tale  and  The  Tempest  in  stage  devices,  about 
a  dozen  of  which  are  cited,  but  with  how  much  greater 
skill  Shakespeare  works  in  The  Tempest  is  evident 


"  Q  "  AS  CRITIC  229 

everywhere  :  in  Antigonus's  counterpart,  Gonzalo,  for 
instance,  for  whom  the  critic  has  a  very  warm  place 
in  his  heart,  praising  even  his  Utopian  visions  ;  in 
Ferdinand,  who  is  an  improvement  on  Florizel  in 
every  way,  in  the  spirit  of  his  wooing  and  his  courage, 
and  so  on.  Having  convinced  us  that  The  Tempest 
resembles  The  Winter's  Tale  in  dozens  of  ways,  and 
improves  on  each  one  of  them,  he  proceeds  to  prove 
that  The  Tempest  came  after  it  in  point  of  time  by 
repeating  his  phrase  that  every  artist  tires  of  re- 
peating his  successes,  but  never  of  renewing  his 
experiments. 

The  theme  which  Shakespeare  seeks  to  engraft  upon 
his  old  ones  is  that  of  Reconciliation  ;  the  difficulty 
of  presenting  a  complete  story  dwelling  on  this  in  two 
or  three  hours  was  almost  heartbreaking ;  again  and 
again  it  beats  him.  Suddenly,  in  The  Tempest,  he 
brings  off  the  trick  by  marvellous  stage-craft ;  is  it 
likely  that  having  succeeded  he  would  turn  back  in 
The  Winter's  Tale  to  imitate  old  failures  ?  Such  an 
argument  seems  to  me  to  clinch  the  matter,  so  far 
as  it  is  important  at  all  that  we  like  to  feel  that 
Shakespeare  left  off  on  a  top  note.  That  it  was  written 
for  the  Court,  and  for  a  wedding,  "  Q  "  seeks  to  prove 
in  his  final  lecture,  by  its  resemblance  to  A  Mid- 
summer Night's  Dream,  the  "  notion "  of  the  play, 
and  its  position  in  the  First  Folio  (a  most  in- 
genious theory !) ;  he  passes  on  to  conjure  up  a 
vision  of  the  first  night  most  ably  visualised,  dwelling 
again  on  one  of  his  favourite  first  principles  to  help 
us  appreciate  the  storm  and  shipwreck :  "  //  you 
are  an  artist  and  are  setting  out  to  tell  the  incredible, 
nothing  will  serve  you  so  well  as  to  open  with  absolute 
realism,"  quoting  in  happy  illustration  the  opening 
sentence    of   Robinson   Crusoe.      Of    the    wonderful 


280         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WTIITERS 

Miranda  he  refuses  to  say  more  than  that  Coleridge 
has  expressed  what  we  all  feel  of  her,  and  that  it  is 
just  in  Shakespeare's  creation  of  such  a  peerless  girl 
that  his  genius  vanishes  and  leaves  us  hopelessly 
foundered  ;  "  he  invented  Lady  Macbeth  and  Miranda, 
both  to  be  acted  by  boys."  The  thought  is  in 
itself  stupefying,  and  proves,  if  proof  were  needed, 
that  it  is  folly  to  think  of  Shakespeare  as  limited  by 
the  conditions  of  his  craft.  Of  Caliban  he  can  find 
it  in  his  heart  to  say  :  "  If  he  were  to  come  fawning 
into  the  room,  our  impulse  would  be  to  pat  him  on 
the  head — '  Good  old  doggie  !  Good  monster,'  that 
would  be  the  feeling,"  which  is  in  itself  a  lightning 
flash  of  criticism,  revealing  exactly  what  excellent 
qualities  "  Q  "  brings  to  his  art  as  a  critic. 

He  notes  as  a  curious  point  of  similarity  between 
The  Tempest  and  A  Midsummer  NighVs  Dream  that 
these  two  require  to  be  acted  by  amateurs  ;  "  the 
professional  never  made  any  hand  with  either  play." 
He  asks  us  to  believe  that  Prospero  was  no  photograph 
of  an  individual,  neither  James  I  nor  Shakespeare. 
"  For  in  truth  that  is  not  the  way  of  the  imaginative 
artist ;  and  if  the  reader  mil  not  take  it  from  me  he 
may  take  it  from  Aristotle."  "  Q  "  concludes  his  thesis 
by  boldly  declaiming  that  were  the  choice  offered 
him  "  which  of  all  the  books  ever  written  I  would 
select — ^not  the  Odyssey,  not  the  Aeneid,  nor  the 
Divine  Comedy,  nor  Paradise  Lost,  nor  Othello,  nor 
Hamlet,  nor  Lear,  but  The  Tempest  should  be  mine. 
The  Tempest  forces  diviner  tears,  tears  for  sheer 
beauty ;  we  feel  that  we  are  greater  than  we  know. 
So  on  the  surge  of  our  emotion  is  blown  a  spray,  a 
mist — ^and  its  colours  are  wisdom  and  charity,  with 
forgiveness,  tender  ruth  for  all  men  and  women 
growing  older,  and  perennial  trust  in  young  love." 


IV 

ALICE  MEYNELL  AS  CRITIC 

WE  must  study  other  men's  inventions  in 
our  closet,  but  need  we  now  print  our 
comments  on  them  ?  Exposition,  inter- 
pretation, by  themselves  are  not  necessary.  But  for 
controversy  there  is  cause."  So  does  Alice  Meynell, 
herself  one  of  the  most  polished  of  our  prose  writers 
and  most  mystically  gifted  of  our  poets,  excuse  herself 
for  writing  Hearts  of  Controversy.  Whatever  the  ex- 
cuse, whatever  the  cause,  we  cannot  but  feel  thankful 
that  she  felt  impelled  to  be  controversial  about 
Tennyson,  Dickens,  Swinburne,  and  the  Brontes, 
for  she  sheds  a  clear  light  on  each  of  these  in  her 
criticisms. 

Her  essay  on  Tennyson,  for  instance,  is  a  precious 
gem,  clear-cut,  crystalline  for  all  its  poetic  cadences  ; 
for  Alice  Meynell  writes  prose  as  a  poet  writes  it,  as  her 
own  beloved  Francis  Thompson  wrote  it. 

"  If  there  ever  was  a  poet  who  needed  to  be  '  parted,' 
it  is  he  who  wrote  both  narrowly  for  his  time  and 
liberally  for  all  time,  and  who  had  both  a  style  and  a 
manner ;  a  masterly  style,  a  magical  style,  a  too  dainty 
manner  ;  a  noble  landscape  and  in  it  figures  something 
ready-made.  .  .  .  We  have  the  style  and  the  manner 
locked  together  at  times  in  a  single  stanza,  locked  and 
yet  not  mingled  .  .  .  but  the  little  nation  of  lovers  of 
poetry  .  .  .  cannot  remain  finally  insensible  to  what  is 
at  once  majestic  and  magical  in  Tennyson.  .  .  .  How, 

valuing  singleness  of  heart  in  the  sixteenth  century, 

231 


282  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

splendour  in  the  seventeenth,  composure  in  the 
eighteenth,  how  shall  we  long  disregard  these  virtues 
in  the  nineteenth-century  master  for  the  insignificant 
reasons  of  his  bygone  taste,  his  insipid  courtliness,  his 
prettiness  ...  or  what  not  ?  "  Who  would  disparage 
a  poet  who  can  write  : 

On  one  side  lay  the  ocean,  and  on  one 
Lay  a  great  water,  and  the  moon  was  full  ? 

•'  His  blank  verse  is  often  too  easy ;  it  slips  by,  without 
thefrictionof  the  movement  of  vitality  ;  .  .  .  he  shows 
us  that  of  all  merits  ease  is  the  most  dangerous,  but  ease 
in  him  does  not  mean  that  he  has  any.  unhandsome, 
slovenly  ways.  ...  In  the  first  place,  the  poet  with 
the  welcome  style  and  the  little  unwelcome  manner, 
he  is,  in  the  second  place,  the  modem  poet  who  with- 
stood France."  Not  the  Elizabethans  were  more 
insular.  We  are  apt  to  judge  a  poet  too  exclusively 
by  his  imagery.  "  Tennyson  has  more  imagination 
than  imagery.  His  homely  imscenic  scenery  makes  his 
vision  fresh  ;  but  he  is  equally  fresh  with  the  things 
that  others  have  outworn  ;  mountains,  desert  islands, 
castles,  elves  ...  in  his  *  horns  of  elfland  '  there  is 
the  remoteness  and  light  delirium  of  rapturous  and 
delicate  health.  .  .  .  There  is  never  a  passage  of 
manner  but  a  great  passage  of  style  rebukes  our  dis- 
like and  recalls  our  heart  again.  ,  .  . 

"  Tennyson  is  an  eminently  all-intelligible  poet.  .  .  . 
Where  he  hesitates  his  is  the  sincere  pause  of  process 
and  uncertainty.  It  has  been  said  that  midway 
between  the  student  of  material  science  and  the  mystic, 
Tennyson  wrote  and  thought  according  to  an  age  that 
wavered  between  the  two  minds,  and  that  men  have 
now  taken  one  way  or  the  other.  Is  this  true  ?  The 
religious  question  that  arises  upon  experience  of  death 


ALICE  MEYNELL  AS  CRITIC  23B 

has  never  been  asked  with  more  sincerity  than  by  him. 
If  In  Memoriam  represents  the  mind  of  yesterday,  it 
represents  no  less  the  mind  of  to-morrow.  ...  In  so 
far  as  the  poem  attempts,  weighs,  falters,  and  confides, 
it  is  true  to  the  experience  of  human  anguish  and 
intellect ;    I  say  intellect  advisedly ;   he  doesn't  sUp 
into  the   errors  of  a   Coleridge,   whose  senses   were 
certainly  infinitely  and  transcendently  spiritual,  but 
who  told  a  silly  story  in  The  Ancient  Mariner   (the 
wedding  guest  might  rise  a  sadder,  but  he  assuredly 
did  not  rise  a  wiser  man),  or  those  of  Wordsworth, 
who  imagined  that  grass  would  not  grow  where  a  stag 
had    died.     Nowhere    in    the    whole    of   Tennyson's 
thought  is  there  such  an  attack  on  our  reason  and  our 
heart  as  this.  .  .  .  But  he  is,  before  all,  the  poet  of 
landscape  ;   the  sense  of  hearing,  as  well  as  the  sense 
of  sight,  has  never  been  more  greatly  exalted  than 
by  Tennyson  ;  his  own  especially  is  the  March  month 
— his  '  roaring  moon.'     Ilis  is  the  spirit  of  the  dawning 
month  of  flowers  and  storms  ;    his  was  a  new  appre- 
hension of  Nature,  an  increase  in  the  number  of  our 
national  apprehensions  in  Nature. 

"  Tennyson,  the  clearest-headed  of  poets,  is  our 
wild  poet ;  wild,  notwithstanding  that  little  foppery 
we  know  of  in  him,  that  walking  delicately,  like 
Agag ;  wild,  notwithstanding  the  work,  the  ease,  the 
neatness,  the  finish  ;  notwithstanding  the  assertion 
of  manliness  which,  in  asserting,  somewhat  misses  the 
mark  ;  a  wilder  poet  than  the  rough,  than  the  sensual, 
than  the  defiant,  than  the  accuser,  than  the  denouncer. 
Wild  flowers  are  his — wild  winds,  wild  hearts,  wild 
lights,  wild  eyes  !  " 

We  may  not  agree  with  Mrs  Meynell's  estimate  of 
Tennyson  any  more  than  we  agree  with  her  on  the 
subject  of  Dickens,  but  we  can  scarcely  withhold 


234  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

admiration  for  her  courage,  or  love  for  the  deUcacy  of 
her  feeling.  She  is  too  prone  to  cast  aspersions  on 
our  parts  of  speech ;  that  she  has  no  great  love  for 
the  Georgians  is  evident  from  this :  "  Nothing 
places  Dickens  so  entirely  out  of  date  as  his  trust  in 
human  sanctity,  his  love  of  it,  his  hope  for  it,  his  leap 
at  it."  This  is  a  gross  misstatement  of  fact,  due  to  a 
misconception  in  Mrs  Meynell's  mind  of  the  word 
"  sentiment."  Where  she  scores  in  her  criticism  here 
is  in  combating  the  superstition  that  "  caricature  " 
means  something  derogatory.  "  Caricature,  when  it 
has  the  grotesque  inspiration,  makes  for  laughter, 
and  when  it  has  the  celestial,  makes  for  admiration  ; 
it  is  quite  different  from  exaggeration,  the  worst  form 
of  violence.  Exaggeration  takes  for  granted  some 
degree  of  imbecility  in  the  reader,  whereas  caricature 
takes  for  granted  a  high  degree  of  intelligence.  '  Cari- 
cature,' which  is  used  a  thousand  times  to  reproach 
Dickens,  is  the  word  that  does  him  singular  honour." 

Mrs  Meynell's  devotion  to  Dickens  is  based  on  ad- 
miration of  his  humour,  his  dramatic  tragedy,  and  his 
watchfulness  over  inanimate  things  and  landscape ; 
"he  is  master  of  wit  and  derision."  She  defends  his 
diction  and  grammar,  though  she  laments  that  he  has 
"no  body  of  style,"  and  comments  on  his  joy  in  mis- 
shapen and  grotesque  things,  his  whimsically  ugly 
names,  and  the  fact  that  all  his  people,  suddenly  sur- 
prised, lose  their  presence  of  mind.  One  feels  that  a 
"fuller-blooded"  critic  would  have  made  a  better 
case.  It  is  part  of  our  case  against  Dickens  that  he 
would  not  have  appreciated  Mrs  Meynell's  art  at  all. 

She  is  far  more  fitted  by  temperament  to  apportion 
blame  and  praise  to  Swinburne,  her  next  subject. 
She  is,  at  any  rate,  sufficiently  concise  and  direct  here, 
in   spite  of  her  sometimes  exotic   style  of  writing 


ALICE  MEYNELL  AS  CRITIC  235 

(what  does  "rachitic"  mean?).^  "We  predicate  of  a 
poet  a  great  sincerity,  a  great  imagination,  a  great 
passion,  a  great  intellect ;  these  are  the  master 
qualities,  and  yet  we  are  compelled  to  see  in  Swinburne 
a  poet,  yes,  a  true  poet,  with  a  perfervid  fancy  rather 
than  an  imagination,  a  poet  with  puny  passions,  a 
poet  with  no  more  than  the  momentary  and  impulsive 
sincerity  of  an  infirm  soul,  a  poet  with  small  intellect 
— ^and  thrice  a  poet.  ...  A  vivid  writer  of  English  was 
he,  and  would  have  been  one  of  the  recurring  renewers 
of  our  oft-renewed  and  incomparable  language,  had  his 
words  not  become  habitual  to  himself,  so  that  they 
quickly  lose  the  light,  the  breeze,  the  breath ;  .  .  . 
his  recklessness  of  appreciation  is  less  than  manly,  it 
is  ideally  feminine ;  but  no  woman  has  yet  been 
capable  of  so  entire  an  emotional  impulse  and  impetus  ; 
his  failure  of  intellect  was  a  national  disaster,  and  his 
instinct  for  words  was  a  national  surprise.  .  .  .  He  is  a 
complete  master  of  the  rhythm  and  rhyme,  the  time 
and  accent,  the  pause,  the  balance,  the  flow  of  vowel 
and  clash  of  consonant  that  make  the  '  music  '  for 
which  verse  is  popular  and  prized."  His  anapaests 
(Mrs  Meynell  loves  only  iambic  and  trochaic  measures) 
are  "  far  too  delicate  for  swagger  or  strut,  but  for  all 
their  dance,  all  their  spring,  all  their  flight,  all  their 
flutter,  we  are  compelled  to  perceive  that,  as  it  were, 
they  perform.^'  It  is  in  the  traditional  metres  that  we 
find  his  best  dignity,  and  therefore  his  best  beauty.  His 
exceptional  faculty  of  diction  led  him  to  immoderate 
expressiveness,  to  immodest  sweetness,  to  jugglery, 
prestidigitation  and  conjuring  of  words,  to  trans- 
formations and  transmutations  of  sound. 


1  The  Oxford  Dictionary  suggests  "rickets."  It  is  an  even  less 
attractive  word  than  "Q's"  "  autoschediastic,"  on  which  the  Dictionary 
throws  no  light. 


236  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

"  I  believe  that  Swinburne's  thoughts  have  their 
source,  their  home,  their  origin,  their  authority  and 
mission  in  those  two  places — his  own  vocabulary  and 
the  passion  of  other  men  ...  he  sustained,  he 
fattened,  and  he  enriched  his  poetry  upon  other  men's 
passions  ;  what  sincerity  he  has  is  absorbed  in  the  one 
excited  act  of  receptivity.  He  is  charged  with  one 
man's  patriotism,  another's  love  of  sin,  a  third's  cry 
of  liberty,  a  fourth's  erotic  sickness.  .  .  . 

"  But  by  the  unanimous  poet's  splendid  love  of  the 
landscape  and  the  skies,  by  this  he  was  possessed, 
and  in  this  he  triumphed,  .  .  .  but  this  poet,  who  is 
conspicuously  the  poet  of  excess,  is  in  deeper  truth 
the  poet  of  penury  and  defect." 

We  expect  good  criticism  on  Charlotte  and  Emily 
Bronte  from  so  sensitive  a  member  of  their  own  sex  as 
Alice  Meynell,  but  anyone  who  has  read  May  Sinclair's 
wonderful  book  on  the  sisters  will  almost  certainly  be 
dissatisfied  with  this  essay.  Mrs  Meynell's  con- 
troversy in  this  case  is  with  those  who  admire  Charlotte 
Bronte  throughout  her  career.  She  altered  greatly. 
There  was  a  time  when  she  practised  such  verbs  as  "to 
evince,"  "to reside,"  "to  intimate,"  and  "to  peruse." 
She  talked  of  "  an  extensive  and  eligible  connexion,"  "  a 
small  competency,"  "  it  operated  as  a  barrier  to  further 
intercourse,"  and  of  a  child  "  for  the  toys  he  possesses 
he  seems  to  have  contracted  a  partiality  amounting 
to  affection." 

"  Encumbered,"  says  Mrs  Meynell,  "  by  this 
drift  and  refuse  of  English,  she  yet  achieved  the  miracle 
of  her  vocabulary.  It  is  less  wonderful  that  she  should 
have  appeared  out  of  such  a  parsonage  than  that 
she  should  have  arisen  out  of  such  a  language." 
Later :  "In  alternate  pages  Villette  is  a  book  of 
spirit  and  fire,  and  a  novel  of  illiberal  rancour,  of 


ALICE  MEYNELL  AS  CRITIC  287 

ungenerous,  uneducated  anger,  ungentle,  ignoble. 
In  order  to  forgive  its  offences  we  have  to  remember 
the  immeasurable  sorrow  of  the  authoress's  life. 
It  is  well  for  the  perpetual  fellowship  of  mankind  that 
no  child  should  read  this  life  and  not  take  therefrom 
a  perdurable  scar." 

Mrs  Meynell  finds  occasion  to  extol  her  brief  pas- 
sages of  landscape,  and  quotes  excellent  examples 
of  her  success  in  this  direction.  She  makes  a  good 
point  when  she  compares  the  sisters :  "  Whereas 
Charlotte  Bronte  walked,  with  exultation  and  enter- 
prise, upon  the  road  of  symbols,  under  the  guidance 
of  her  own  visiting  genius,  Emily  seldom  or  never 
went  out  upon  those  avenues.  She  was  one  who 
practised  little  or  no  imagery.  Her  style  had  the 
key  of  an  inner  prose  which  seems  to  leave  imagery 
behind  in  the  way  of  approaches.  .  .  .  She  seems  to  have 
a  quite  unparalleled  unconsciousness  of  the  delays,  the 
charms,  the  pauses  of  and  preparations  of  imagery.  .  .  . 
Charlotte  Bronte's  noblest  passages  are  her  own  speech 
or  the  speech  of  one  like  herself,  acting  the  central 
part  in  the  dreams  and  dramas  of  emotion  that  she 
had  kept  from  her  girlhood — ^the  unavowed  custom 
of  the  ordinary  girl  by  her  so  splendidly  avowed  in 
a  confidence  that  comprised  the  world.  Emily  had 
no  such  confessions  to  publish.  She  contrived  to 
remove  herself  from  the  world  ;  as  her  person  left  no 
image,  so  her  *  I '  is  not  heard  in  her  book.  .  .  .  Emily 
was  no  student  of  books.  .  .  .  Heathcliff's  love  for 
Catherine's  past  childhood  is  one  of  the  profound 
surprises  of  Wilthering  Heights ;  it  is  to  call  her 
childish  ghost — the  ghost  of  the  little  girl — when 
she  has  been  a  dead  adult  woman  twenty  years  that 
the  inhuman  lover  opens  the  window  of  the  house  on 
the  Heights.  .  .  .  Another  thing  known  to  genius 


288  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

and  beyond  a  reader's  hope  is  the  tempestuous 
purity  of  those  passions.  This  wild  quaUty  of  purity 
has  a  counterpart  in  the  brief  passages  of  nature 
that  makes  the  summers,  the  waters,  the  woods, 
and  the  windy  heights  of  that  murderous  story  seem 
so  sweet.  .  .  ."Where  are  there  any  landscapes  more 
ejcquisite  and  natural  than  are  to  be  found  scattered 
in  these  pages  .  .  .  the  two  only  white  spots  of 
snow  left  on  all  the  moors,  and  the  brooks  brim-full ; 
the  old  apple-trees,  the  smell  of  stocks  and  wall- 
flowers in  the  brief  summer,  the  few  fir-trees  by 
Catherine's  window-bars,  the  early  moon.  .  .  .  None 
of  these  things  is  presented  by  images  ;  nor  is  that 
wonderful  passage  wherewith  the  book  comes  to  a 
close  :  '  I  Ungered  under  that  benign  sky  :  watched 
the  moths  fluttering  among  the  heath  and  harebells, 
hstened  to  the  soft  wind  breathing  through  the 
grass,  and  wondered  how  anyone  could  ever  imagine 
unquiet  slumbers  for  the  sleepers  in  that  quiet  earth.' 

"  Wild  figure  as  she  was,  Emily  Bronte  vanished, 
escaped,  and  broke  away,  exiled  by  the  neglect  of  her 
contemporaries,  banished  by  their  disrespect,  out- 
lawed by  their  contempf,  dismissed  by  their  in- 
difference." It  is  pleasant  to  turn  to  May  Sinclair 
on  the  subject  of  the  Brontes  after  this  somewhat 
scrappy  diagnosis. 

"  Love  of  life  and  passionate  adoration  of  the  earth," 
says  Miss  Sinclair,  "  adoration  and  passion  fiercer 
than  any  pagan  knew,  bums  in  Wiiihering  Heights. 
We  are  plunged,  apparently,  into  a  world  of  most 
unspiritual  lusts  and  hates  and  cruelties,  into  the  very 
darkness  and  thickness  of  elemental  matter  :  a  world 
that  would  be  chaos  but  for  the  iron  necessity  that 
brings  its  own  terrible  order,  its  own  implacable 
law  .  .  .  but — ^and  this  is  what  makes  Emilv  Bronte's 


ALICE  MEYNELL  AS  CRITIC  239 

work  stupendous — not  for  a  moment  can  you  judge 
Heathcliff  by  his  bare  deeds.  If  there  was  never 
anything  less  heavenly,  less  Christian,  than  this 
drama,  there  never  was  anything  less  earthly,  less 
pagan.  It  is  above  all  our  consecrated  labels  and 
distinctions.  It  is  the  drama  of  suffering  born  of 
suffering,  and  confined  strictly  within  the  boundaries 
of  the  soul.  It  is  not  (in  spite  of  Madame  Duclaujt) 
any  problem  of  heredity  that  we  have  here.  It  is  a 
world  of  spiritual  affinities  ;  never  was  a  book  written 
with  a  more  sublime  ignorance  of  the  physical.  The 
book  stands  alone,  absolutely  self-begotten  and  self- 
bom.  It  belongs  to  no  school :  it  follows  no  tendency. 
It  is  not '  Realism,'  it  is  not '  Romance.'  Redemption 
is  not  its  key-note.  The  moral  problem  never  entered 
Emily  Bronte's  head.  She  reveals  a  point  of  view 
above  good  and  evil.  She  is  too  lucid  and  too  high 
for  pity.  There  is  nobody  to  compare  with  her  but 
Hardy ;  and  even  he  has  to  labour  more,  to  put  in 
more  strokes,  to  achieve  his  effect.  In  six  lines  she 
can  paint  sound  and  distance  and  scenery  and  the 
turn  of  the  seasons  and  the  two  magics  of  two  atmo- 
spheres. The  book  has  faults,  many  and  glaring. 
It  is  probably  the  w^orst-constructed  tale  that  ever  was 
written,  and  yet  in  style  it  stands  far  above  anything 
of  her  sister's.  .  .  .  She  has  no  purple  patches,  no  deco- 
rative effects.  There  are  no  angels  in  her  rainbows  : 
her  '  grand  style  '  goes  unclothed,  perfect  in  its  naked 
strength,  its  naked  beauty.  Nor  does  her  dramatic 
instinct  ever  fail  her  as  Charlotte's  so  frequently  does." 
So  much  for  an  example  of  May  Sinclair's  critical 
genius  ;  for  240  pages  she  can  go  on  unfolding  point 
after  point  in  each  of  the  sister's  work,  which  all  make 
that  work  clearer  to  understand,  easier  to  appreciate. 
To  return  to  Mrs  Meynell.     Her  last  essay  is  an  attack 


240         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

on  the  prevailing  conception  of  the  eighteenth 
century  as  "  The  Century  of  Moderation." 

"  After  a  long  literary  revolt  against  the  eighteenth- 
century  authors,  a  reaction  was  due,  and  it  has  come 
about  roundly.  We  are  guided  back  to  admiration 
of  the  measure  and  moderation  and  shapeliness  of 
the  Augustan  age.  And  indeed,  it  is  well  enough  that 
we  should  compare  some  of  our  habits  of  thought 
and  verse  by  the  mediocrity  of  thought  and  perfect 
propriety  of  diction  of  Pope's  best  contemporaries. 

"  If  this  were  all !  But  the  eighteenth  century 
was  not  content  with  its  sure  and  certain  genius. 
Suddenly  and  repeatedly  it  aspired  to  a  '  noble 
rage.* "  She  quotes  example  after  example  of  such 
extravagant  essays  in  noble  rage  as  : 

His  eyeballs  burn,  he  wounds  the  smoking  plain, 
And  knots  of  scarlet  ribbon  deck  his  mane. 

"  It  was  the  age  of  common  sense,  we  are  told,  and 
truly ;  but  of  common-sense  now  and  then  dis- 
satisfied, common-sense  here  and  there  ambitious, 
common-sense  of  a  distinctively  adult  kind  taking  on 
an  innocent  tone.  .  .  .  The  eighteenth  century  matched 
its  desire  for  wildness  in  poetry  with  a  like  craving  in 
gardens.  The  synmietrical  and  architectural  garden, 
so  magnificent  in  Italy,  was  scorned  by  the  eighteenth- 
century  poet-gardeners  because  it  was  *  artificial,' 
and  the  eighteenth  century  must  have  '  nature  ' — 
nay,  passion.  There  seems  to  be  some  passion  in 
Pope's  grotto,  stuck  with  spar  and  little  shells. 
Truly  the  age  of  The  Rape  of  the  Lock  and  the  Elegy 
was  an  age  of  great  wit  and  great  poetry.  Yet  it  was 
untrue  to  itself.  I  think  no  other  century  has 
cherished  so  consistent  a  self-conscious  incongruity." 
Sound  criticism,  genial  bantering,  pleasing  to  read, 


ALICE  MEYNELL  AS  CRITIC  241 

but  set  it  beside  May  Sinclair's  more  robust  stuff — 
and  what  a  world  of  difference.  Listen  again  to  Miss 
Sinclair  on  Charlotte  Bronte :  "  Shirley  is  modem 
to  her  finger-tips,  as  modem  as  Meredith's  great 
women  ;  she  was  bom  fifty  years  before  her  time. 
Shirley  was  literally  the  first  attempt  in  literature 
to  give  to  woman  her  right  place  in  the  world." 
Or  again,  of  Emily  :  "  Her  eye  seeks,  and  her  soul 
possesses,  the  vision  of  life  as  she  wishes  it  .  .  , 
that  was  the  secret  of  her  greatness,  of  her  im- 
measurable superiority  to  her  sad  sister's."  Mrs 
Meynell  writes  in  the  study  of  art  for  art's  sake  ; 
Miss  Sinclair  in  the  market-place,  also  of  art,  for  the 
sake  of  erring  humanity. 


V 

LAFCADIO  HEARN 


IT  seems  a  curiously  roundabout  way  of  arousing 
interest  in  our  literature  in  the  young  people  of 
our  own  country,  but  I  have  proved  by  experience 
that  the  best  books  of  criticism  on  English  literature 
for  beginners  are  Lafcadio  Heam's  Interpretations  of 
Literature,  and  Appreciations  of  Poetry,  lectures  in- 
tended solely  for  Japanese  students,  put,  for  that  pur- 
pose, into  the  simplest  possible  language.  Extremely 
modest  about  his  own  attainments,  "  I  know  very  little 
about  English  literature,  and  never  could  learn  very 
much  *' — ^he  taught  it  as  the  expression  of  emotion  and 
sentiment — ^as  the  representation  of  life.  He  based  it 
altogether  upon  appeals  to  the  imagination.  He  held 
the  chair  of  English  in  the  University  of  Tokyo  from 
1896  to  1902.  For  six  years  he  was  the  interpreter  of 
the  Western  world  to  Japan,  and  it  is  singularly 
fortunate  that  the  Western  world  had  so  dignified,  so 
broad-minded,  so  idealistic  an  interpreter.  He  used 
no  notes  in  his  lectures,  but  dictated  slowly  out  of  his 
head  :  knowing  himself  to  be  no  scholar,  and  having 
no  belief  in  his  critical  powers,  he  did  not  think  his 
lectures  worth  printing  :  he  spent  no  time  in  analysing 
technique,  but  went  straight  to  the  heart  of  his 
subject  and  treated  it  as  an  emotional  experience,  as 
a  total  expression  of  racial  endeavour,  in  which  ideas, 
however    abstract,    often    control    conduct,    and   in 

342 


LAFCADIO  HEARN  248 

which  conduct  often  explains  ideas  :  he  was  a  devoted 
Spencerian,  and  had  a  weird  power  of  assimilating 
books  which  he  passionately  loved.  That  is  all  that 
we  are  told  of  him  in  the  preface  to  these  volumes  :  it 
remains  to  be  seen  how  far  his  lectures  throw  light  on 
his  character. 

He  begins  by  explaining  what  he  calls  "the  in- 
superable difficulty,"  the  understanding  on  the  part 
of  the  Japanese  of  the  position  of  women  in  Western 
civilisation.  "  The  highest  duty  of  the  man  is  not  to 
his  father,  but  to  his  wife  .  .  .  every  man  is  bound 
by  conviction  and  by  opinion  to  put  all  women  before 
himself,  simply  because  they  are  women  ...  in  time 
of  danger  the  woman  must  be  saved  first :  in  time  of 
pleasure  the  woman  must  be  given  the  best  place ; 
this  first  place  is  given  almost  religiously  :  so  you 
understand  that  woman  is  a  cult,  a  reUgion,  a  god  : 
men  bow  down  before  women,  make  all  kinds  of 
sacrifices  to  please  them,  beg  for  their  good  will  and 
assistance.  The  man  who  hopes  to  succeed  in  life 
must  be  able  to  please  the  women — ^yet  it  is  quite 
possible  to  worship  an  image  sincerely,  and  to  seek 
vengeance  upon  it  in  a  moment  of  anger  (hence  wife- 
beating)  :  this  feeling  of  worship  did  not  belong  to 
the  Greek  and  Roman  civilisation,  but  it  belonged  to 
the  life  of  the  old  northern  races — in  the  oldest 
Scandinavian  literature  you  will  find  that  women 
were  thought  of  and  treated  by  men  of  the  north 
very  much  as  they  are  thought  of  and  treated  by 
Englishmen  of  to-day.  Consider  how  the  great  mass 
of  Western  poetry  is  love  poetry,  and  the  greater  part 
of  Western  fiction  love  stories.  This  feeling  of  wor- 
ship has  not  originated  in  any  sensuous  idea,  but  in 
some  very  ancient  superstitious  idea." 

Having  so  far  cleared  the  way  for  a  perception  of 


244  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

our  ideas,  he  proceeds  to  lecture  on  "  The  Question 
of  the  Highest  Art."  Art  he  defines  as  the  emotional 
expression  of  life  :  "  The  highest  form  of  art  is  that 
•which  makes  you  feel  generous,  willing  to  sacrifice 
yourself,  makes  you  eager  to  attempt  some  noble 
undertaking.  Moral  beauty,  as  Spencer  says,  is  far 
superior  to  intellectual  beauty,  as  intellectual  beauty 
transcends  physical  beauty  :  human  love  is  a  useful 
example :  as  the  sudden  impulse  to  unselfishness,  to 
endure  anything,  to  attempt  anything  difficult  or 
dangerous  for  the  person  beloved,  is  one  of  the  first 
signs  of  true  love,  so  it  is  with  art."  "  I  should  say 
that  the  highest  form  of  art  must  necessarily  be  such 
art  as  produces  upon  the  beholder  the  same  moral 
effect  that  the  passion  of  love  produces  in  a  generous 
lover.  .  .  .  Such  an  art  ought  to  fill  men  even  with  a 
passionate  desire  to  give  up  life,  pleasure,  every- 
thing, for  the  sake  of  some  grand  and  noble  pur- 
pose. .  .  .  Drama,  poetry,  great  romance  or  fiction, 
in  other  words,  great  literature,  may  attempt  the 
supreme,  and  very  probably  will  do  so  at  some  future 
time." 

On  the  vexed  subject  of  the  interpretation  of 
"  Classical  "  and  "  Romantic  "  he  has  much  that  is 
useful  to  say. 

"  Classic  work  means  work  constructed  according 
to  old  rules  which  have  been  learnt  from  the  Greek 
and  Latin  masters  of  literature,  ...  in  other  words 
the  classicists  say  that  you  have  no  right  whatever  to 
choose  your  own  forms  of  literary  expression,  while 
the  romanticists  urge  that  it  is  right  and  artistic  to 
choose  whatever  form  of  literary  expression  an  author 
may  prefer,  provided  only  that  the  form  be  beautiful 
and  correct ;  the  great  mistake  which  the  champions 
of  classical  feeling  made  in   England  was  that  of 


LAFCADIO  HEARN  245 

considering  language  as  something  fixed  and  perfected, 
completely  evolved  ;  so  that  the  romanticist  retorts 
that  the  classical  people  wish  to  stop  all  progress.  It 
is  only,  however,  out  of  the  quarrelling  of  the  two 
schools  that  any  literary  progress  can  grow." 

He  advises  nis  audience  to  disregard  the  proverb 
medio  tutissimus  ibis,  and  plunge  into  extremes,  to 
take  sides  vigorously  in  the  conflict :  "  reforms  are 
made  by  the  vigour  and  the  courage  and  the  self- 
sacrifice  and  the  emotional  conviction  of  young  men 
who  do  not  know  enough  to  be  afraid,  and  who  feel 
much  more  deeply  than  they  think  :  feelings  are  more 
important  than  cold  reasoning.  It  is  a  good  sign  in 
the  young  to  be  a  little  imprudent,  a  little  extrava- 
gant, a  little  violent :  too  much  of  the  middle  course 
is  a  bad  sign.  It  does  not  matter  at  all  which  side 
you  choose :  conservatism  has  done  much,  and 
liberalism  has  done  still  more  :  every  alternation  of 
the  literary  battle  results  in  making  the  romantic 
spirit  more  classic,  and  the  classic  spirit  more  romantic : 
each  learns  from  the  other  by  opposing  it."  It  is 
obvious  that  Ream's  own  sympathies  lie  entirely  with 
the  romantic  school,  and  he  urges  his  hearers  to 
attempt  to  write  great  books  in  the  language  of  the 
common  people.  Reverting  to  Europe  he  shows  them 
how  the  vested  interests,  the  Universities,  the  Church, 
and  Society,  have  always  ranged  themselves  on  the 
side  of  conservatism,  and  points  out  that  the  opposi- 
tion to  change  was  so  great  that  only  the  most  extra- 
ordinary man  dared  to  break  through  :  "  Literary 
style  means  personal  character  :  romanticism  aims  at 
developing  a  personality,  while  classicism  represses  it ; 
so  the  question  resolves  itself  into  that  of  Personality 
in  literature  :  Personality  in  its  highest  form  signifies 
genius,  and  so  you  will  find  that  the  vast  majority  of 


246         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  ^VRITERS 

great  writers  are  Romanticists  :  but  there  are  dangers  : 
the  great  genius  can  afford  to  dispense  with  any 
discipline  which  impedes  its  activity  :  thousands  of 
young  men  want  to  be  romantic  mainly  because 
romanticism  represents  for  them  the  line  of  least 
resistance.  Even  to  do  anything  according  to  classical 
rules  requires  considerable  literary  training  and  literary 
patience  ...  so  you  will  fmd  that  the  same  man 
might  very  consistently  be  at  one  period  of  his  life 
in  favour  of  classicism  and  at  another  in  favour  of 
romanticism." 

Having  delivered  judgment  on  these  general  themes 
he  turns  his  attention  to  individual  writers,  beginning 
with  Crabbe,  of  whom  he  writes  more  interestingly 
than  any  other  critic  I  have  ever  read.  Heam's  most 
potent  faculty  is  that  of  driving  us  straight  back  to 
read  the  writers  of  whom  he  speaks  so  engagingly. 
He  points  out  the  realism  of  Crabbe,  and  shows  us 
that  one  of  the  first  signs  of  realism  is  the  absence  of 
variety  in  style  :  "  What  we  like  in  him  is  his  great 
force  and  truth  and  pithiness  of  expression :  he 
depicts,  in  all  its  naked  misery,  the  cottage  of  the 
poor  farm-labourer,  the  dirt,  the  misery,  the  disease — 
the  country  girl,  once  pretty,  then  seduced,  and 
abandoned  ;  the  strain  of  labour  exacted  in  the  fields, 
the  exhausted  state  of  the  men  and  women  at  nights ; 
the  rapid  decay  of  strength  among  them,  their 
inability  to  save  money,  the  hopelessness  of  their  old 
age" :  he  quotes  those  well-known  lines  on  a  country 
parson  by  a  coimtry  parson  which  I  cannot  forbear 
from  repeating ; 

A  jovial  youth,  who  thinks  his  Sunday's  task 
As  much  as  God  or  man  can  fairly  ask  ; 
The  rest  he  gives  to  loves  and  labours  light, 
To^fields  the^moming,  and  to  feasts  the  night ; 


LAFCADIO  HEARN  247 

None  better  skilled  the  noisy  pack  to  guide, 
To  urge  their  chase,  to  cheer  them  or  to  chide. 
A  sportsman  keen,  he  shoots  through  half  the  day, 
And,  skilled  at  whist,  devotes  the  night  to  play. 

It  is  hard  to  account  for  the  neglect  into  which  a 
man  of  such  powers  can  have  sunk.  Heam  also 
quotes  the  description  of  the  bully  at  school,  and 
recommends  his  audience  to  begin  their  reading  of 
Crabbe  with  The  Tales  :  "  One  of  the  reasons  that 
you  will  like  it  is  the  remarkable  observation  of 
human  nature  everywhere  shown."  To  whet  their 
appetites  he  narrates  the  plot  of  The  Frank  Courtship,  ' 
and  adorns  the  tale  by  pointing  the  literary  moral. 

"  How  many  of  us  who  write,  want  to  write  only 
about  the  things  that  please  ?  How  differently  did 
Crabbe  act.  He  did  not  like  at  all  the  conditions 
under  which  he  was  obliged  to  live  and  work,  but  he 
recognised  that  it  might  be  of  great  use  to  record 
them  in  literature,  artistically,  truthfully,  and  dis- 
passionately. And  he  became  a  great  artist  by 
writing  about  the  things  he  detested  :  but  he  does 
not  intrude  his  own  likes  and  dislikes  :  his  business 
as  realist  was  to  make  pictures  of  life  ...  to  work 
in  this  way  requires  more  than  self-denial :  it  requires 
immense  force  of  character." 

He  links  up  Crabbe  with  Cowper,  "  almost  as  much 
a  realist,  but  in  another  way."  He  brings  out 
very  well  Cowper's  love  of  nature,  his  classicism,  his 
sense  of  colour,  his  hatred  of  Lord  Chesterfield, 
Public  Schools,  and  ugliness,  his  love  of  love,  his 
gentle  humour,  his  understanding  of  and  sympathy 
with  animals,  and  his  descriptive  powers,  quoting 
and  paraphrasing  with  great  success  passages  cal- 
culated to  make  his  students  desire  better  acquaint- 
ance with  this  most  sensitive  of  the  precursors  of  the  * 


248         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

Romantic  Revival.  It  is  significant,  however,  to  note 
that  he  omits  to  mention  either  his  letters  or  his  hymns. 
In  his  lecture  on  Blake,  by  means  of  some  very 
clever  paraphrasing  he  throws  a  good  deal  of  light  on 
to  the  meaning  of  that  much  misunderstood  word, 
"  mysticism."  "  Originally,"  he  writes,  "  the  term 
was  ecclesiastic  :  a  mystic  was  a  man  directly  inspired 
from  heaven  to  write  of  divine  things.  Later  a 
mystic  came  to  mean  a  person  who  believed  that 
through  religious  faith  and  meditation  it  was  possible 
to  obtain  knowledge  of  things  which  could  be  learned 
neither  by  reason  nor  through  the  senses  ;  latterly 
mysticism  is  any  form  of  belief  in  the  possibility  of 
holding  communication  with  the  invisible  world." 
Blake  is  a  mystic  in  all  these  three  senses,  influenced 
primarily  by  the  teaching  of  Swedenborg  :  he  used 
to  see  patriarchs  and  prophets  and  angels  walking 
about,  and  used  to  talk  to  them.  It  is  interesting 
to  recall  that  he  printed  his  oami  poems  by  an 
expensive  process  which  necessitated  engraving  the 
whole  of  the  text  backwards  on  copper  plates  in 
black  and  white,  afterward  colouring  the  pictures  by 
hand.  He  left  behind  him  a  hundred  volumes  of 
illustrated  poetry  and  prose  which  were  burnt  by  an 
*'  Irvingite  "  parson  called  Tatham  on  the  ground 
that  they  were  all  inspired  by  the  Devil.  Heam 
divides  up  Blake's  poetic  achievements  into  three  neat 
divisions :  the  first,  written  under  the  influence  of  the 
Elizabethans  ;  the  second,  before  he  came  to  believe 
that  everything  he  wrote  was  the  work  of  ghosts  and 
spirits ;  and  the  last,  when  he  lived  in  a  continual 
state  of  hallucination.  Swedenborg  had  taught  him 
to  search  for  revelation,  and  consequently  we  find 
even  in  the  simplest  of  his  songs  an  ulterior  spiritual 
meaning  which  needs  digging  for.    At  the  beginning  of 


LAFCADIO  HEARN  249 

his  career  he  breaks  loose  from  the  school  of  Pope, 
and  imitates  Spenser,  then  he  strives  to  express  his 
philosophic  views,  which  neariy  always  take  a  good 
deal  of  unravelling  :  but  the  important  fact  remains 
that  his  achievement  was  of  such  a  sort  as  to  make 
all  the  poets  who  came  after  him  in  a  great  degree  his 
debtor  :  as  Heam  says,  "  Every  poet  of  importance 
makes  a  serious  study  of  Blake,  and  there  was  no 
poet  of  the  Victorian  age  who  did  not  learn  a  great 
deal  from  him." 

Our  hearts  go  out  to  a  critic  who  can  begin  an 
essay  on  Wordsworth  by  saying  that  "  he  is  one  of 
the  most  tiresome,  most  vapid,  and  most  commonplace 
of  English  poets  in  certain  respects,  a  poet  who  wrote 
an  astonishing  amount  of  nonsense.  He  wrote  poetry 
as  regularly  and  untiringly  as  a  machine  cuts  or  saws 
wood.  The  difference  between  his  best  and  his  worst 
is  so  great,  so  extraordinary,  that  we  cannot  under- 
stand it."  He  notes  the  influence  of  Crabbe  and 
Cowper  on  Wordsworth,  and  dwells  lovingly  on  the 
"  generous,  large,  tolerant,  and  almost  pantheistic  " 
spirit  of  reflection  that  was  so  especially  his  :  he 
rightly  calls  attention  to  his  lack  of  a  sense  of  humour, 
and  then  proceeds  to  show  how  exquisite  are  his 
happiest  verses  even  when  they  dwell  on  the  simplest 
things.  "  Of  sexual  love  there  is  scarcely  anything  in 
Wordsworth  :  but  love  of  children,  love  of  kindred, 
and  love  of  country  and  friends — these  forms  of 
affection  have  found  in  his  verse  the  most  beautiful 
expression  which  English  poetry  can  offer."  He  is 
peculiarly  helpful  in  pointing  out  the  fallacies  in 
Wordsworth's  Ode  on  Intimations  of  Immortality,  but 
does  not  even  touch  on  his  theory  of  poetic  diction  ; 
nor  are  his  selections  at  all  those  which  one  would 
expect.     ITiat   is   perhaps   one   of  Heam's   greatest 


250  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

charms  :  although  he  is  only  attempting  to  give  the 
simplest  account  of  our  great  writers,  he  never 
approaches  them  along  the  lines  of  stereotyped 
criticism  ;  consequently,  even  though  we  may  imagine 
that  we  have  heard  the  last  word  on  a  poet  whom  we 
have  carefully  studied,  we  shall  do  well  to  look  up 
Ream's  comments  before  we  conclude  that  there  is  no 
more  to  be  said. 

He  draws  a  lurid  picture  of  the  sensitive,  imagina- 
tive, emotional  Coleridge  wandering  about,  weak  and 
erratic,  begging  charity  and  dying  in  a  state  of  utter 
misery :  he  has,  however,  the  justice  to  show  the 
more  lovable  and  beautiful  side  of  the  poet's  nature, 
and  shows  how  much  of  a  helpless  child  he  remained 
all  his  life  :  precisely  the  opposite  of  Byron  (who  was 
most  manly  in  real  life,  but  a  child  in  thinking), 
Coleridge  was  a  child  in  his  life,  a  giant  in  his  thoughts. 
"  He  was  able  to  influence  the  whole  intellect  of 
England  in  matters  of  religious  feeling":  the  Oxford 
Movement  was  very  largely  caused  by  Coleridge  : 
(Jerman,  Greek,  and  mediaeval  philosophy  equally 
attracted  him,  and  were  equally  absorbed  by  him. 
But  all  he  ever  did  was  done  by  fits  and  starts,  in 
fragments,  shreds,  and  patches.  He  only  wrote  about 
2200  lines  of  good  poetry,  but  those  2200  lines  are 
such  poetry  that  there  is  nothing  greater  in  English 
past  or  present.  The  Rime  of  the  Ancient  Mariner 
takes  up  1500  of  these,  Christabel  600,  and  Kubla 
Khan  and  Love  the  rest.  Outside  these  there  is 
scarcely  anything  of  value  as  a  whole.  And  yet  no 
other  modem  poet  has  had  so  great  and  so  lasting  an 
influence.  Scott  wrote  The  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel 
in  imitation  of  Christabel,  and  Byron,  Shelley,  Keats, 
Tennyson,  Browning,  and  Rossetti  all  show  traces  of 
his  influence.    Wliat  Coleridge  did  was  to  invent  a  verse 


LAFCADIO  HEARN  251 

which  is  the  most  flexible  and  most  musical  in  which 
a  story  can  be  told,  the  syllables  of  which  may  shrink 
in  number  or  expand,  the  rhymes  of  wliich  may  change 
places  and  the  cadences  alternate  between  iambic 
and  trochaic:  thus  every  possible  liberty  for  which 
a  poet  could  wish  for  exists  in  this  measure.  There  is 
an  amazing  elasticity  by  means  of  which  monotony 
becomes  impossible.  But  he  also  infused  into  poetry 
something  new  in  tone,  in  feeling,  in  emotional  expres- 
sion, which  defies  analysis  :  it  is  something  ghostly 
and  supernatural. 

Hearn  explains  the  vogue  for  Byron  by  trying  to 
show  that  people  were  tired  of  the  coldness  and  the 
speculative  tendencies  of  poetry.  They  wanted  pas- 
sion instead  of  philosophy,  human  characters  instead 
of  ghosts,  anything  for  a  change  :  there  had  been 
altogether  too  much  talk  about  virtue  and  religion 
and  the  soul :  when  the  Satanic  school  began  to 
speak,  the  Love  school  ceased  to  interest.  This  essay 
on  Byron  is  one  of  his  most  brilliant  feats  :  it  explains 
with  admirable  lucidity  the  reasons  for  Byron's 
European  popularity :  it  runs  through  the  main 
features  of  his  life,  emphasising  very  skilfully  those 
facts  which  went  to  the  making  of  this  peculiar 
genius,  his  adulterous  father,  his  passionate  mother, 
his  cold,  prudish  wife,  who  represented  in  herself  all 
the  convention  and  cant  and  hypocrisy  of  the  age, 
his  instinct  for  fighting,  his  burning  sense  of  injustice 
at  the  way  in  which  England  treated  him  when  his 
wife  left  him  :  "  There  were  two  Byrons  :  one  was 
naturally  reckless,  selfish,  and  sensual ;  the  other  was 
generous,  heroic,  and  truly  noble."  He  traces  his 
poetic  career  briefly  but  effectively.  He  shows  us 
how  the  public  went  wild  with  delight  in  the  years 
1812-1814  over  the  Childe  Harold,  Corsair  poems,  and 


252  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  V^TIITERS 

idolised  the  man  they  were  to  execrate  in  1815.  The 
best  part  of  his  work  was  written  after  this  date.  In 
1823  he  gave  up  poetry  for  ever  in  order  to  help  the 
Greeks,  and  in  1824  died  for  them. 

"  No  poet  ever  had  such  a  vast  and  sudden  popu- 
larity, not  only  in  England,  but  all  over  Europe  :  his 
influence  chiefly  made  the  French  romantic  move- 
ment :  German,  Spanish,  and  Italian  literatures  were 
all  influenced  by  him,  while  the  English  student  of 
Russian  literature  cannot  help  being  amazed  at  the 
Byronic  element  in  all  their  great  writers  .  .  .  and 
yet,  within  a  generation,  this  popularity  ebbed  and 
vanished  :  Byron  is  now  scarcely  read,  the  reason  for 
which  is  easy  to  see.  Literature  means  hard  work, 
no  matter  how  much  genius  is  behind  it :  patient 
self-control  is  an  absolute  necessity  for  the  genius. 
It  is  not  merely  a  case  of  moral  self-control :  there 
have  been  cases  of  a  lack  of  right  conduct  in  life 
going  hand  in  hand  with  splendid  conduct  in  work. 
The  reason  that  his  work  is  no  longer  read  or  valued, 
except  by  the  young,  is  that  it  is  nearly  all  done 
without  patience,  without  self-control,  and  therefore 
without  good  taste  or  the  true  spirit  of  art.  Endowed 
with  a  marvellous  talent  for  writing  in  verse  as  easily 
as  other  men  write  in  prose,  he  poured  out  his  poems 
as  a  bird  pours  out  its  song,  almost  without  effort. 
He  thought  that  passion  was  poetry  .  .  .  but  to 
utter  one's  feelings  in  verse  is  only  the  beginning  of 
poetry :  after  that  there  is  the  correcting,  polishing, 
and  smoothing,  which  Byron  could  never  do.  Byron's 
verse  resembles  lava  by  its  heat  and  force,  and  also 
in  being  full  of  dross.  Tliere  is  splendour,  but 
splendour  always  in  the  shape  of  ore.  The  great 
genius  never  did  its  best,  never  tried  to  do  its  best, 
never  could  have  done  its  best,  because  there  was  no 


LAFCADIO  HEARN  253 

power  of  patience  or  self-control  to  help  it.  The 
success  of  Childe  Harold  was  due  to  the  subject :  it 
had  all  the  charm  of  novelty  :  but  it  was  also  due  to 
the  new  style  of  character  introduced  :  in  all  these 
poems  there  was  a  spirit  of  revolt  against  God  and 
man  :  curiosity  was  aroused  :  everybody  was  shocked, 
but  everybody  was  pleased.  In  spite  of  its  cynicism, 
its  evil  eroticism,  its  rebellion,  and  its  immorality  it 
made  him  the  idol  of  the  public  because  it  exemplified 
the  universe-law  that  strength  is  the  only  important 
thing.  Any  human  being  able  to  prove  himself 
superior  to  the  moral,  social,  and  civil  law  will  be 
greatly  honoured  in  an  European  country.  Byron 
forced  people  to  think  in  a  new  way.  He  made  them 
ask  themselves  whether  it  was  really  enough  to  be 
simply  good  in  this  world,  and  whether  what  we 
have  been  accustomed  to  call  evil  and  wicked  might 
not  have  not  only  a  reason  for  being,  but  a  certain 
infernal  beauty  of  its  own.  He  infused  the  whole  of 
European  literature  for  a  time  with  the  Satanic  spirit, 
a  spirit  which  signified  a  vague  recognition  of  another 
law  than  that  of  pure  morality — ^the  law  of  struggle, 
the  law  of  battle,  and  the  splendour  of  strength  even 
in  a  bad  or  cruel  cause.  Remember  that  Byron  never 
intended  to  do  this  :  he  was  not  clever  enough  for 
that :  he  did  it  in  spite  of  himself,  and  this  explains 
his  momentary  power  over  literature." 

He  advises  his  hearers  to  read  Don  Juan  in  order 
to  see  Byron  at  his  best  in  satire,  lyrical  tenderness, 
and  descriptive  splendour  :  in  the  meantime  he  culls 
for  them  typical  extracts  to  show  that,  though  he 
was  no  philosopher,  Byron  could  yet  express  large 
thoughts  in  a  large  and  lasting  way,  that  as  a  descrip- 
tive writer  he  could  far  surpass  Scott  or  Wordsworth, 
and  that  in  two  forms  of  verse,  the  Spenserian  stanza 


254  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

and  ottavarima  he  showed  extraordinary  power :  as 
an  example  of  supreme  narrative  power  he  quotes 
Mazeppa  at  great  length,  and  concludes  with  the  wise 
words,  "  Any  critic  can  find  bad  work  in  Byron  :  but 
scarcely  any  poet  can  show  us,  at  certain  splendid 
moments,  the  same  strength  and  the  same  fire  of 
emotional  life." 

He  then  turns  to  the  second  figure  of  the  Satanic 
school,  Shelley,  "  even  more  interesting,  more  of  a 
rebel,  more  of  an  enemy  of  society  than  was  Byron. 
Shelley  was  at  once  a  very  lovable  man  and  a  very 
great  fool.  His  peculiar  folly  lay  in  trying  to  put  into 
practice  the  mischievous  teaching  of  Rousseau,  that 
civilised  men  should  live  according  to  nature  :  now 
we  know  that  nature  is  very  cruel  and  not  in  the  least 
degree  estimable  from  the  standpoint  of  pure  morals." 
Tracing  the  main  course  of  Shelley's  life,  he  lays  stress 
upon  the  boy's  refusal  to  "  fag  "  while  at  Eton,  his 
hatred  of  Christianity,  and  all  moral  and  social  teach- 
ing, culminating  in  the  publication  of  the  tract  which 
caused  his  dismissal  from  Oxford  :  having  failed  to 
secure  his  cousin,  Harriet  Grove,  for  wife  he  ran 
away  at  eighteen  with  Harriet  Westbrook  who  was 
sixteen,  and  only  married  her  to  ensure  legal  protec- 
tion for  her  :  it  was  then  that  he  came  into  contact 
with  Godwin,  the  ex-clergyman  atheist,  novelist,  and 
politician,  and  his  queer  circle,  Fanny,  Miss  Clairmont, 
Byron's  mistress,  and  Mary  Godwin,  the  sixteen-year- 
old  disbeliever  in  marriage  with  whom  Shelley  now 
threw  in  his  lot,  after  telling  Harriet  that  he  no 
longer  loved  her  at  a  time  when  she  was  pregnant, 
with  the  result  that  she  drowned  herself.  Society 
somewhat  naturally  turned  on  him  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  he  was  married  to  Mary,  so  he  went  to  Italy, 
and  was  in  his  turn  drowned  at  the  age  of  thirty.     As 


LAFCADIO  HEARN  255 

most  critics  have  pointed  out,  it  is  impossible  to 
understand  Shelley's  poetry  •  unless  we  take  into 
account  these  facts  of  his  life.  His  mind  may  have 
been  unbalanced,  but  his  soul  was  supremely  generous, 
and  he  bequeathed  to  us  the  finest  lyrical  poetry  of 
his  age :  his  direct  influence  was  slight :  there  is  but 
little  "  body  "  in  his  work  :  the  voice  is  very  sweet, 
and  touches  the  heart :  he  created  a  new  emotional 
utterance,  but  Lafcadio  Hearn  warns  his  pupils  off 
the  longer  poems.  "  Very  little  of  Shelley  is  truly 
great :  The  Cenci  and  Prometheus  Unbound  are  grand, 
but  his  greatness  must  be  sought  in  his  lyrical  poems, 
which  are  musically  perfect,  though  it  requires  a  good 
ear  to  perceive  their  supreme  value  :  the  melody 
consists  of  a  peculiar,  liquid,  slow,  soft  melancholy, 
implied  more  by  the  measure  than  by  the  words." 
He  proceeds  to  quote  from  and  paraphrase  in  his  own 
inimitable  style  some  of  the  best-known  lyrics,  bring- 
ing out  their  truth  to  nature  and  the  pure  spirit  of 
classicism  which  pervades  them.  Though  his  estimate 
cannot  compare  in  brilliance  with,  that  of  Francis 
Thompson  or  Professor  Dowden,  it  can  at  least  take 
rank  with  Bagehot's  and  Glutton  Brock's,  and  helps  us 
to  understand  and  therefore  love  a  rather  difficult  (be- 
cause so  disembodied)  poet  better  than  we  did  before. 
On  Keats  he  writes  authoritatively  and  wisely.  He 
stresses  the  significance  of  his  exquisite  ear  for  the 
music  of  words,  his  passionate  Greek  love  of  truth 
and  beauty,  the  part  played  in  his  life  by  the  unworthy 
Fanny  Brawne,  and  attempts  to  account  for  his 
tremendous  influence  on  Tennyson  and  Browning. 
"  He  is  not  a  poet  easily  appreciated  :  he  does  not 
appeal  to  the  young  :  this  is  because  of  the  extra- 
ordinary finish  and  fullness  of  his  lines,  which  demand 
constant   effort   of  imagination   and   fancy  to  read 


256         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  ^VRITERS 

correctly  :  there  is,  moreover,  scarcely  any  story  in 
the  larger  part  of  his  works.  He  did  not  give  us 
anything  new  in  the  way  of  form.  The  secret  of  his 
power  lies  in  his  quality — sonorousness  of  phrase, 
splendour  of  colour,  and  a  sort  of  divine  intuition  in 
choice  of  words.  He  did  this  by  studying  and 
absorbing  the  best  work  of  his  contemporaries  and 
fusing  them  together  in  a  new  form  of  expression.  He 
summarised  and  utilised  all  the  forces  of  the  moment, 
and  so  taught  the  generations  after  him  how  to  do 
the  same  thing.  He  was  especially  the  eclectic  poet 
of  his  time  :  he  had  the  Greek  gift  of  lucidity  and  is 
never  vague,  though  he  is  given  to  over-elaboration, 
much  ornament,  too  many  images." 

He  advises  his  audience  to  read  Lamia,  Isabella, 
The  Eve  of  St.  Agnes,  the  Odes  and  Sonnets,  and  to 
omit  the  rest.  He  then  quotes  and  paraphrases  with 
wonderful  skill  the  more  famous  odes,  stopping  to 
recommend  his  readers  to  read  Apuleius's  The  Golden 
Ass,  which  he  very  rightly  calls  "  one  of  the  world's 
great  books."  "  The  faculty  of  instantly  seizing  the 
very  centre  and  core  of  an  emotional  fact,  and  of 
setting  it  before  the  reader  in  one  Ughtning-flash  of 
dazzling  verse  is  shown  in  the  Ode  on  a  Grecian  Urn." 
He  has  some  excellent  things  to  say  on  the  subject 
of  "  pleasure-pain."  "  Certain  effects  of  music  give 
us  pleasure  or  pain  that  can  only  be  accounted  for  by 
the  experience  of  millions  of  previous  lives,  transmitted 
to  us  by  inheritance."  He  refers  his  readers  to 
Spencer's  Origin  and  Function  of  Music  for  further 
enlightenment.  He  concludes  his  study  of  Keats 
with  a  very  minute  and  able  analysis  of  each  stanza 
of  the  Ode  to  a  Nightingale,  which  he  manages  to  make 
even  more  beautiful  (if  such  a  thing  is  possible)  by 
the  expanded  prose  version  which  he  appends. 


LAFCADIO  HEARN  257 

"  In  order  to  understand  the  spirit  of  a  national 
literature  we  must  know  what  makes  people  laugh,  as 
well  as  what  makes  them  weep."  For  this  purpose 
he  chooses  Hood  as  the  subject  of  one  of  his  lectures. 
"  Hood  will  be  of  use  to  you  for  another  reason  :  the 
great  mass  of  his  comic  work  consists  of  clever 
punning  :  now  many  a  student  is  quite  at  a  loss 
when  he  comes  to  deal  with  English  conversational 
idioms  :  they  need  a  great  deal  of  explanation  :  I 
can  think  of  no  better  way  of  learning  familiar  idioms 
than  by  reading  the  comic  poems  of  Hood  .  .  .  but 
he  had  a  double  gift :  he  began  by  attempting  serious 
verse,  but  could  not  live  by  it,  so  he  had  to  turn  to 
the  comic  muse,  and  immediately  became  popular. 
The  Song  of  the  Shirt,  I  Remember,  The  Dream  of 
Eugene  Aram,  and  The  Bridge  of  Sighs,  are  immortal : 
he  had  the  gift  for  touching  the  sensation  of  fear,  of 
pity,  of  tenderness,  of  childish  memories  and  of  the 
grotesque  (in  Miss  Kilmansegg  and  Her  Precious  Leg) 
in  a  very  high  degree." 

In  his  essay  "  on  the  Philosophy  of  Sartor  Resartus  " 
Heam  does  something  to  counteract  the  tendency 
of  all  modem  critics  to  depreciate  the  teaching  of 
Carlyle.  He  realises  that  philosophers  of  Carlyle's 
stamp  are  emotional  rather  than  logical,  have  more 
feeling  than  reasoning,  "  but  they  exert  more  influence 
than  the  larger  thinkers  do  because  they  are  more 
easily  understood  and  more  widely  read."  After 
asserting  that  Carlyle's  message  is  especially  given  in 
Sartor  Resartibs,  he  confesses  that  up  to  the  time  of 
reaching  middle  life  he  was  unable  to  read  the  book 
at  all,  but  after  that  period  each  re-reading  seemed 
to  make  it  appear  "  greater  and  wider  and  more 
astonishing." 

He  then  explains  the  general  idea  that  Carlyle  had 


258  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

in  -wTiting  a  Philosophy  of  Clothes,  in  these  words : 
"  Much  had  been  written  about  the  body  as  form,  but 
not  about  the  body  as  the  garment  of  the  soul,  as  the 
symbol  of  an  infinite  mystery.  .  .  .  The  body  of  man 
is  worn  out  quickly  like  his  clothes,  and  has  in  the 
same  way  to  be  discarded.  Death  is  our  change  of 
clothes,  nothing  more.  We  have  then  the  first  great 
statement,  that  all  visible  matter  is  but  a  garment  or 
manifestation  of  the  invisible,  and  that  man's  body 
is  not  a  permanent  reality,  but  only  the  symbol  or 
covering  of  him."  Imagine  humanity  without  clothes 
— clothes  are  the  Foundation  of  Society  :  imiversal 
nudity  would  proclaim  too  powerfully  the  general 
equality  of  all.  The  next  point  is  the  relation 
between  the  development  of  society  and  civilisation 
and  clothes  :  all  clothes  are  a  mask,  and  so  we  get  to 
the  stage  when  we  ask  ourselves  whether  naked  truth 
is  always  respectable,  whether  it  is  even  always  good, 
whether  it  is  not  sometimes  bad,  whether  falsehood  is 
sometimes  not  only  good,  but  even  divine  :  truth  is 
often  wickedness,  and  falsehood  pure  love  and  good- 
ness. So  it  is  obvious  that  a  mask  is  necessary,  the 
mask  of  clothes,  of  illusion.  "  Probably  imposture  is 
of  a  sanative,  anodyne  nature,  and  man's  gullibility 
not  his  least  blessing."  The  second  part  of  the  book 
is  autobiographical,  and  gives  us  the  history  of  nearly 
every  man.  In  it  we  are  made  to  see  that  even 
religious  fables  have  their  worth,  that  through  our 
own  suffering  we  learn  what  the  suffering  of  mankind 
is,  that  without  evil  there  can  be  no  good :  in  youth 
we  leam  through  pain,  in  adolescence  comes  a  period 
of  scepticism  during  which  we  believe  in  nothing, 
neither  in  love,  friendship,  religion,  honesty,  nor 
truth.  Later  we  leam  to  respect  humanity  because 
we  understand  how  bitter  life  is,  and  how  bravely 


LAFCADIO  HEARN  259 

mankind  has  borne  the  burden  of  it :  in  place  of  the 
religion  we  lost,  we  win  through  to  a  larger  faith  ; 
instead  of  the  lost  friendship,  we  gain  a  love  for  all 
humanity  ;  and,  finally,  just  as  we  discovered  the 
necessity  for  pain  and  evil,  we  begin  to  see  that 
falsehood,  follies,  and  defections  are  of  incalculable 
value,  and  really  form  the  husks  or  masks  or  visible 
garments  of  invisible  truth. 

On  finishing  the  autobiography  we  are  led  on 
to  discuss  church  clothes :  what  men  commonly  call 
religion  the  philosopher  calls  the  clothes  of  religion, 
which  wear  out,  and  have  to  be  thrown  away  and 
replaced  ...  so  all  forms  and  doctrines  change. 
The  same  is  true  of  the  clothing  of  military  power  : 
its  symbols  of  rank,  its  machinery  of  force,  its  trappings 
of  colour  are  only  the  outward  signs :  the  forms 
remain  when  the  body  is  dead  and  the  spirit  vanished, 
like  the  suit  of  clothes  in  Poe's  Masque  of  the  Red 
Death  :  such  a  thing  is  an  army  without  spirit,  moral 
discipline,  or  real  reserve  of  power. 

These  few  points  serve,  at  any  rate,  to  show  how 
Sartor  Resartus  stimulates  thought  and  an  interest  in 
life  :  "  the  worth  of  the  reading  is  in  its  after-effect : 
it  forces  big  thoughts  and  compels  the  recognition  of 
new  aspects  of  common  things."  Hearn  concludes  his 
paper  with  a  cogent  summary  of  Carlyle's  teaching 
on  obstacles  to  success.  "  The  obstacles  in  life  which 
are  really  serious  are  not  to  be  overcome,  either  by 
energy  or  work  or  honesty  or  duty  or  faith  or  anything 
purely  good.  For  these  obstacles  are  the  wickedness 
and  folly  and  ignorance  and  envy  and  malice  of  other 
men."  He  thinks  it  important  that  his  pupils 
should  realise  that  "  to  be  good  in  this  world  is  very 
difficult,  not  because  of  our  own  difficulty  in  being 
good,  but  because  other  people  make  the  difficulty  for 


260  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

us."  To  be  good  and  strong  .  .  .  that  is  the  final 
teaching  of  Carlyle. 

He  devotes  two  of  his  most  interesting  chapters  to 
the  study  of  nineteenth-century  novehsts,  beginning 
with  Sir  Walter  Scott,  whose  style  he  abuses.  *'  The 
whole  value  of  the  Waverley  novels  is  in  the  story- 
teller's way  of  telling  his  story :  his  characters 
sometimes  seem  alive,  but  they  are  often  impossibly 
good  :  he  achieves  the  appearance  of  life  by  piling  up 
an  enormous  mass  of  detail :  Shakespeare  does  not 
bother  himself  about  the  outer  man  :  he  gives  you 
the  real  thought  .  .  .  then  the  soul  that  he  made 
inamediately  covers  itself  with  warm  flesh  and  becomes 
alive.  Scott  bothers  about  nothing  except  the  outer 
man  .  .  .  and  yet  he  has  a  generous  vivacity,  a 
noble  idealism,  a  fire  of  purpose  which  influenced 
all  European  literature  for  good." 

He  has  not  much  that  is  good  to  say  of  Dickens. 
"  A  character  did  not  appear  to  him  the  marvellously 
complex  thing  that  it  really  is  :  he  distinguished 
it  only  by  some  peculiarity  :  he  was  a  marvellous 
caricaturist,  a  genius  in  the  delineation  of  peculiarities, 
mostly  of  a  small  kind." 

His  attempt  to  revive  an  interest  in  Lord  Lytton  is 
timely,  for  few  of  us  nowadays  read  him,  but  we  learn 
from  Heam  that  no  other  great  novelist  ever  wrote  in 
so  many  different  ways,  upon  so  many  different  things  ; 
he  wrote  fashionable  novels,  novels  of  crime,  historical 
romances,  novels  of  middle-class  domestic  life,  and 
novels  of  the  supernatural.  He  recommends  A 
Strange  Story  as  incomparably  his  greatest  book ; 
"  No  more  terrible  story  was  ever  written  :  to  read 
it  is  like  an  education  in  the  supernatural."  "  The 
ornamental,  rhetorical,  highly  coloured,  and  musical 
style  reached  its  highest  in  him :    do  not  believe 


LAFCADIO  HEARN  261 

critics  who  tell  you  that  Lytton's  style  is  not  worth 
study."  Heam  falls  more  into  line  with  ordinary 
criticism  when  he  praises  Thackeray  as  the  very  giant 
of  the  art  of  novel-writing,  but  he  seems  to  be  un- 
able to  give  any  evidence  for  his  statement  beyond 
the  fact  that  his  characters  are  all  really  alive.  He 
sums  up  Charlotte  Bronte's  achievement  thus : 
"  What  she  did  was  simply  to  put  into  book  form  her 
own  experiences  of  love,  despair,  and  struggle,  but 
this  with  the  very  highest  art  of  the  novel-writer, 
with  a  skill  of  grouping  incident  and  of  communicating 
vividness  to  the  least  detail,  rarely  found  in  English." 
He  gives  a  rather  unnecessarily  full  life-history  of 
George  Eliot,  but  wisely  comments  on  the  baneful 
influence  on  her  art  which  G.  H.  Lewes  exerted  :  he 
selects  Romola  as  her  greatest  work,  though  he  reserves 
a  place  in  his  affections  for  Daniel  Deronda.  He  passes 
over  Westward  Ho  !  in  favour  oiHypatia  in  his  estimate 
of  Kingsley,  to  whom  he  devotes  much  space  as  "  one  of 
the  greatest  figures  in  nineteenth-century  literature," 
an  opinion  based  on  little  or  no  evidence.  Trollope 
"had  an  extraordinary  imagination,  but  it  was  de- 
veloped entirely  in  one  direction,  in  that  of  character 
types."  Wilkie  Collins  he  selects  as  the  greatest  in- 
ventor of  plots  we  have  ever  had  :  "  he  could  make  the 
reader  interested  in  bad  characters."  Stevenson  he 
likes  for  his  short  stories  and  his  application  of  realism 
to  the  romantic  method.  "  By  his  style  he  belongs 
to  the  very  first  rank  of  English  prose-writers  :  he 
has  never  had  a  real  superior :  the  story  charms, 
but  the  value  is  in  the  author's  manifestation  of  new 
flexibilities  and  powers  in  the  use  of  English,  such  as 
before  him  were  practically  unknown."  Meredith's 
style,  on  the  other  hand,  he  finds  "  detestable,  most 
pernicious  :  it  is  colloquial,  confidential,  involved,  and 


262  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

often  provokingly  obscure  "...  yet  as  a  novelist 
"  he  is  very  great  jndeed — great  as  a  psychologist, 
as  a  student  of  the  motives  and^acts  of  the  most 
complex  and  delicate  waves  of  character  :  his  special 
force  seems  to  be  in  the  depiction  of  a  contest  between 
two  powerful  characters.  He  is  great  in  his  exactness 
— ^in  his  perfect  mastery  of  all  the  details  of  the 
epoch,  the  place,  or  the  condition  which  he  paints. 
He  is  great  in  his  skill  of  portraiture — in  painting 
for  us  a  multitude  of  different  characters  with 
such  distinctness  that  we  can  see  them  and  hear 
them." 

Over  Kipling  he  gushes  like  a  schoolgirl :  "  Without 
any  comparison  the  greatest  writer  of  short  stories 
in  English  :  he  is  all  mind  and  eye.  There  is  nothing 
sensuous  in  his  material :  there  is  sensitiveness 
extraordinary.  He  is  supremely  impersonal,  he  never 
describes  ...  no  other  writer  is  so  terse  :  he  never 
says  more  than  just  enough  to  convey  the  idea  desired, 
never  uses  more  adjectives  than  he  can  help,  and  never 
uses  a  weak  one.  His  sentences  are  hard,  very  short, 
and  very  strong  :  he  has  the  power  to  stir  fear  and 
wonder  as  no  other  writer  can,  by  the  simple  state- 
ment of  the  possible  :  he  can  explain  some  enormously 
complex  social  condition  by  the  selection  of  a  few 
powerful  incidents  which  suggest  all  that  cannot  be 
reported  :  immense  self-control,  energetic  strength, 
manly  robustness  show  themselves  in  every  line  of 
his  work,  but  [we  are  astonished  to  hear  it]  he  has 
a  defect  ...  he  is  not  only  strong,  he  is  brutally 
strong,  and  manifests  the  pride  of  strength  in  un- 
pleasant ways  :  he  is  nearly  always  cynical  and  very 
often  offensively  so.  There  is  but  little  of  the  tender, 
or  gentle,  or  touching,  but  much  of  the  strange,  the 
horrible,  the  bloody,  the  morally  terrible  (cf.  The  Light 


LAFCADIO  HEARN  263 

Thai  Failed)  .  .  .  and  yet  he  is  capable  of  the  most 
exquisite  tenderness."  It  is  curious  that  no  mention 
should  be  made  of  his  child  studies,  which  are  about 
the  only  things  the  modem  remembers  Kipling  for  at 
all  I  His  last  choice  among  authors  is  Du  Maurier, 
whose  wholly  forgotten  novel  Peter  Ibbetson  he 
recommends  most  strongly  to  his  pupils. 

After  leaving  the  novelists,  he  breaks  fresh  ground 
by  reviewing  the  philosophers,  beginning  with  Omar 
Khayyam :  "  The  immortal  charm  of  this  com- 
position lies  in  the  way  that  Omar  treats  the  problem 
of  the  universe'which  he  advises  us  not  to  worry  about. 
The  impermanency  of  existence,  the  riddle  of  death, 
the  fading  of  youth,  the  folly  of  philosophy  in  trying 
to  explain  the  unexplainable  are  all  considered  in  the 
most  winning  and  beautiful  verse  with  a  strange 
mixture  of  melancholy  and  of  ironical  humour. 
He  preached  a  kind  of  Epicureanism  and  a  kind  of 
Pantheism  which  we  cannot  regard  really  seriously, 
but  rather  as  an  expression  of  one  view  of  life  in 
strong  opposition  to  the  fanaticism  and  hypocrisy  of 
the  age  in  which  he  lived."  A  chapter  on  the  Pessi- 
mists includes  a  full  study  of  "  Owen  Meredith's  "  The 
Portrait,  an  account  of  James  Thomson's  unhappy 
life,  a  criticism  of  The  City  of  Dreadful  Night,  and 
remarks  on  J.  A.  Symonds,  A.  H.  Clough,  whose 
Bothie  ofToher-na-Vuolich  receives  some  praise,  and  on 
Matthew  Arnold,  whom  he  damns  with  faint  praise 
as  "  reflecting  the  best  of  his  own  class  of  thought, 
a  poet  for  the  old  and  disillusioned  rather  than  the 
young."  Three  philosophical  poems  are  then  re- 
viewed at  length.  Browning's  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,  Swin- 
burne's Hertha,  and  Meredith's  Earth  and  Man. 
Of  Browning  he  says  :  "  He  becomes  a  poet-priest  by 
virtue  of  that  intense  sympathy  which  he  was  able 


264  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

to  feel  and  to  express  even  for  beliefs  that  were  not  his 
own  "  ;  of  Hertha  that,  as  a  poem,  it  is  beyond  praise  as 
philosophy,  but  on  mortality  it  is  unquestionably  thin 
and  disappointing,  being  a  medley  of  northern 
mythology,  the  Bhagavad-Gita,  the  Book  of  Job,  old 
Greek  and  modem  ideas,  Paganism  and  Christianity, 
Paganism  and  individualism ;  it  is  really  just  a 
beautiful  song  of  the  unity  of  hfe.  But  when  he 
comes  to  Meredith  he  has  much  that  is  important 
to  say.  "  Like  Swinburne,  Meredith  preaches  the 
unity  of  life,  but  he  preaches  it  in  a  much  vaster  way. 
Like  Swinburne,  he  would  probably  regard  all  gods 
and  all  religions  as  perishable  phenomena  :  but  he 
can  find  truth  and  beauty  and  use  in  all  beliefs,  in 
spite  of  their  ephemeral  forms.  And  like  Swin- 
burne, he  regards  all  past  and  present  and  future 
existence  as  linked  together.  But  when  he  comes  to 
speak  of  the  meaning  of  life  in  relation  to  ourselves  he 
has  much  more  to  say  than  Swinburne.  For  Meredith 
Nature  is  indeed  a  god,  a  very  terrible  and  exacting 
god,  and  our  duty  to  her  is  plain  enough.  Life  is 
duty  :  the  character  of  that  duty  is  effort :  the  direc- 
tion of  that  effort  should  be  self-cultivation  of  the 
highest  human  faculties  at  the  expense  of  the  lower. 
All  sensualism,  vice,  cruelty,  indolence,  represent 
crimes  against  Nature.  Meredith  preaches  a  Nature- 
religion,  very  terrible,  all  the  more  so  because  we  feel 
it  to  be  true,  because  it  is  the  religion  of  a  thinking 
man  of  science,  who  is  incapable  of  sentimental 
weakness.  His  moral  poems  are  strangely  awful : 
there  is  no  pity,  no  syllable  of  mercy  for  human 
weakness.  Nature  gives  us  our  body,  but  our  inner 
life  is  beyond  her  power  to  make  or  unmake :  she  is 
only  the  nurse  :  for  the  rest  we  must  help  ourselves  : 
we  have  to  struggle  and  put  aside  fear.    She  will  never 


LAFCADIO  HEARN  263 

tell  us  our  lessons  in  advance  :  never  tell  us  why  we 
are  hurt :  we  have  to  find  that  out  for  ourselves. 
She  gives  us  power — ^but  never  what  we  ask  for. 

"  The  real  pxirpose  of  Nature  is  to  force  man  to  de- 
velop himself  until  he  reaches  the  divine  condition  : 
the  first  step  is  the  conquest  of  animal  passion,  to 
subdue  the  very  fierce  temptations  which  she  purposely 
puts  in  our  way.  She  knows  that  only  the  strong 
can  master  their  appetite.  Goodness  must  be  com- 
bined with  intelligence,  will,  and  strength ;  goodness 
and  weakness  are  of  no  use.  Intellectual  strength  is 
the  first  acquirement.  Strength  of  mind,  capacity 
to  govern  one's  passions  independently  of  moral 
motives,  is  better  than  weakness  of  mind  joined  with 
the  best  of  moral  motives.  Man  is,  up  to  now,  only 
half  master  of  himself,  only  half  intellectually  de- 
veloped :  it  will  be  in  a  future  universe  that  we  shall 
understand  Nature  fully  and  be  able  to  read  her  riddles, 
when  other  worlds  have  been  evolved."  From  a 
consideration  of  Meredith's  poetry  he  passes  on  to 
his  prose  in  The  Shaving  ofShagpat,  "  a  fable  that  will 
live  after  all  his  novels  have  been  forgotten  because  it 
pictures  something  which  will  always  be  in  human 
nature."  It  is  in  the  style  of  The  Arabian  Nights y 
but  The  Arabian  Nights  are  cold  and  pale  beside  it. 
"  You  cannot  find  in  The  Arabian  Nights  a  single  page 
to  compare  with  certain  pages  of  The  Shaving  of 
Shagpat,  and  this  is  all  the  more  extraordinary  because 
the  English  book  is  written  in  a  tone  of  extravagant 
humour." 

The  plot  is  simple.  Shagpat  is  a  merchant  who 
wears  his  hair  long  because  his  head  contains  a  magical 
hair  called  the  Identical,  which  has  the  power  to 
make  all  men  worship  the  man  on  whose  head  it 
grows.     Shigli  Bagarag  is  a  barber  who  proposes  to 


266  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

shave  Shagpat :  he  meets  a  horrible,  ugly  old  woman, 
who  makes  him  promise  to  marry  her  because  she 
can  help  him  :  on  kissing  her  she  becomes  young 
and  beautiful,  and  gives  him  the  Sword  of  Aklis,  with 
which  he  eventually  shaves  Shagpat.  Heam  inter- 
prets the  allegory  thus  :  the  sword  of  Aklis  is  the  sword 
of  science,  Bagarag  is  the  scientific  reformer  who  sets 
out  to  cure  abuses,  Nooma,  the  maiden,  is  Science 
herself;  the  hair  is  Error  which  persists  so  strongly 
in  convention  .  .  .  and  after  it  is  destroyed  what 
happens  ?  "  The  great  sea  of  error  inmiediately 
closes  again  behind  the  forms  that  find  strength  to 
break  out  of  it."  The  concluding  lecture  of  the  first 
volume  is  devoted  to  an  appeal  to  the  youth  of 
Japan  to  enlighten  Western  civilization  as  to  Eastern 
ideas  by  giving  them  permanent  expression  in  dramatic, 
poetic,  or  prose  form  :  he  felicitously  cites  the  great 
Russian  novelists  as  examples  of  his  idea.  "  The 
great  work  of  making  Russia  imderstood  was  ac- 
complished chiefly  by  her  novelists  and  story-tellers  ; 
so  that  a  total  change  of  Western  feeling  toward  the 
Russian  people  came  about."  National  feeling  can- 
not be  reached  through  the  head  :  it  must  be  reached 
through  the  heart :  the  Western  nations  know  nothing 
about  Japan,  and  therefore  distrust  her  :  sympathy 
and  understanding  can  only  be  evoked  by  giving 
them  novels  and  stories  written  by  the  Japanese 
about  Japanese  life.  In  two  or  three  years  one  great 
book  would  have  the  effect  of  educating  whole  millions 
of  people  in  regard  to  what  is  good  and  true  in  Japan. 
"  A  man  can  do  quite  as  great  a  service  to  his  country 
by  writing  a  book  as  by  winning  a  battle." 


LAFCADIO  HEARN  267 


II 

The  second  volume  opens  with  a  most  illumin- 
ating paper  on  Shakespeare.  "  No  man  can  under- 
stand Shakespeare  till  he  is  old  :  and  the  English 
nation  could  not  understand  Shakespeare  until  it 
became  old.  In  the  sixteenth  century  Shakespeare 
was  enjoyed  only  as  schoolboys  of  fourteen  years  old 
now  enjoy  him — ^that  is  to  say,  he  was  read  for  the 
story  only,  without  any  suspicion  of  what  an  in- 
tellectual giant  had  appeared  in  the  world.  The 
first  thing  I  should  like  to  impress  upon  you  is  that 
Shakespeare  was  a  phenomenon  :  he  is  not  only  the 
greatest,  but  also  the  most  difficult  of  authors  to 
understand.  The  difficulty  lies  in  the  comprehension 
of  the  depths  of  his  characters — that  is  to  say,  the 
depth  of  his  knowledge  of  human  nature.  Here  is 
a  man  who  created  hundreds  of  living  characters, 
every  one  of  whom  is  totally  different  from  every 
other,  and  all  of  whom  are  perfectly  real,  perfectly 
alive,  perfectly  interesting,  never  in  any  circumstances 
unnatural.  It  is  more  easy  to  forget  living  persons 
whom  you  have  really  known  than  it  is  to  forget  one 
of  Shakespeare's  great  characters  .  .  .  the  problem 
of  Shakespeare  is  a  psychological  one  :  attributing  his 
knowledge  of  character  to  purely  personal  experience, 
we  should  have  to  say  that  he  had  the  power  of 
representing  with  absolute  accuracy  every  feeling 
that  he  had  ever  known  in  any  situation  .  .  .  but  the 
experience  of  fifty  lifetimes  could  not  account  for 
them  :  he  must  have  acted  on  intuition,  from  the 
experience  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  lives  :  at  any 
rate,  he  must  have  been  a  man  of  a  most  extraordinary 
and  exceptional  physical  organisation  ...  a  more 


268  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

perfectly  balanced  character  it  is  not  possible  to 
imagine  :  he  had  to  encounter  the  most  dangerous 
obstacle — pleasure  and  popularity,  and  keep  his  head  : 
the  cost  of  never  allowing  his  feelings  to  drive  him 
into  extremes  must  have  been  terrible  :  his  astounding 
power  of  abstract  thinking  must  have  gone  hand- 
in-hand  with  great  unhappiness,  and  yet  he  passed 
through  life  smoothly,  triumphant,  and  calmly." 

He  just  touches  on  the  personal  element  in 
Shakespeare's  work  and  goes  on  to  define  tragedy 
and  comedy.  "  A  tragedy  should  begin  with  a  calm 
opening,  and  then  gradually  become  more  terrible  : 
a  comedy  may  begin  in  a  tragical  manner,  but  the 
progress  must  be  a  steady  brightening."  He  com- 
ments at  length  on  Shakespeare's  lack  of  inventive 
power :  "  Genius  does  not  need  to  invent,  because 
it  recreates  anything  which  it  touches.  The  sources 
show  you  better  than  anything  the  enormousness  of 
his  genius." 

Again  :  "  Questions  of  psychology  never  entered 
into  his  head  :  his  art  was  unconscious,  he  never 
knew  how  wonderful  his  own  work  was  :  he  only 
felt  that  it  was  true.  He  never  had  a  fundamental 
idea  :  he  never  even  had  a  theory  of  dramatic  com- 
position :  the  only  limit  he  obeyed  was  that  imposed 
by  the  dramatic  necessities  of  the  stage."  A  somewhat 
long  analysis  of  lago's  character,  "  the  most  absolutely 
natural  of  his  painful  creations,"  is  followed  by  a  short 
disquisition  on  the  heroines,  and  a  plea  for  the  study 
of  Shakespeare  through  his  situations. 

It  is  interesting  for  us,  professing  Christians,  to  see 
how  the  non-Christian  Eastern  peoples  receive  our  Scrip- 
tures :  Heam  very  concisely  summarises  the  various 
phases  through  which  the  translations  of  the  Bible  ran, 
from  the  time  when  Tyndale  and  Coverdale  "  coloured 


LAFCADIO  HEARN  269 

the  entire  complexion  of  subsequent  English  prose  " 
by  taking  the  Greek  text  and  not  the  Vulgate  for 
their  model,  through  the  1535  compilation  of  the 
Book  of  Common  Prayer  to  the  1611  edition,  for  which 
Lancelot  Andrews  did  so  much  by  overlooking  and 
correcting  all  the  text.  "  It  may  be  said  without 
question  that  even  the  mistakes  of  the  old  translation 
were  often  more  beautiful  than  the  original."  He 
recommends  his  hearers  to  read  Genesis,  Exodus, 
Ruth,  Esther,  the  Song  of  Songs,  and,  above  all,  Job, 
"  the  grandest  book  in  the  Bible."  "  Of  the  New 
Testament  there  is  very  little  equal  to  the  Old  in 
literary  value :  indeed,  I  should  recommend  the 
reading  only  of  the  Apocalypse."  He  then  turns  to 
the  simple  power  of  the  Norse  writers,  the  force  of 
which  he  traces  to  their  physical  strength :  they 
use  the  economy  of  force,  the  basis  of  all  grace, 
discarding  all  ornament  such  as  adjectives,  and  all 
description  :  they  used  it  in  their  verse,  but  had  the 
skill  to  avoid  it  in  their  prose.  But  it  is  necessary  to 
notice  that  skill  is  needed  to  make  the  incidents  and 
actions  create  the  picture  without  the  aid  of  definite 
descriptive  adjectives.  The  Norse  writers  are  also 
remarkable  in  eliminating  emotion,  partiality,  and 
sjmipathy :  they  evoke  emotion  by  suppressing  it 
altogether  in  their  narrative  :  "  this  is  the  supreme 
art  of  realism,"  and  certainly  the  extracts  which  he 
selects  for  quotation  would  seem  to  prove  his  assertion. 
It  is  clever  of  Heam  to  present  immediately  after  this 
excerpts  from  Sir  Thomas  Browne  to  show  the 
extreme  power  of  great  classical  culture,  scholarship, 
and  reading  which  makes  for  a  style  "  largely  coloured 
and  made  melodious  by  a  skilful  use  of  many-syllabled 
words  derived  from  the  antique  tongues."  Sir 
Thomas  Browne  was  the  first  great  English  writer 


270  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

to  create  an  original  classic  style  which  affected  not 
only  Samuel  Johnson  but  all  the  eighteenth  century. 
Heam  takes  Hydriotaphia  as  the  best  example  of  his 
work  because  it  displays  best  his  learning  and  his  sense 
of  poetry.  "  He  quotes  from  a  multitude  of  authors, 
and  would  appear  to  have  read  everything  that  had 
been  written  about  science  from  antiquity  up  to  the 
middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  :  not  only  did  he 
remember  what  he  had  read,  but  he  digested  it, 
organised  it,  and  everywhere  noticed  in  it  beauties 
that  others  had  not  noticed."  He  asks  his  readers 
to  notice  how  sonorous,  how  dignified,  how  finely 
polished  his  rolling  sentences  are,  how  scholarly,  how 
mystic  ..."  he  is  a  great  teacher  in  the  art  of 
contrast,  of  compression,  of  rhythm,  of  melody.  He 
is  the  father  and  founder  of  English  classic  prose, 
incomparably  superior  to  Bacon." 

Bjomson  is  the  subject  of  his  third  lecture  on  prose 
style  :  he  introduces  his  work  with  a  dissertation  on 
the  necessity  of  studying  foreign  writers  in  translation, 
quoting  Dumas,  Hugo,  and  the  Russians  as  examples 
of  foreigners  who  have  influenced  English  literature. 
Bjomson  is  important  because  he  casts  back  to  the 
ancient  sagas  for  his  style,  and  so  influences  all 
European  literature.  He  is  the  father  and  founder 
of  a  new  literature  which  we  may  call  modem  Norse. 
The  best  of  his  fiction  and  the  bulk  of  it  treats  of  peasant 
life  :  and  this  life  he  portrayed  in  a  way  that  has  no 
parallel  in  European  literature,  with  the  possible 
exception  of  the  Russian  work  done  by  Turgenev 
and  others.  He  employs,  for  instance,  exactness  in 
relating  the  succession  of  incidents  :  he  has  this  in 
common  with  the  early  Scandinavian  writers,  quick- 
ness of  eye  and  accuracy  of  perception. 

Heam's  essay  on  Beaudelaire,  which  follows,  is  an 


LAFCADIO  HEARN  271 

attempt  to  interest  his  readers  in  the  charm  of  poHtical 
prose  as  opposed  tothestemstoicismof  Bjomson,  but 
it  is  obvious  that  in  this  case  his  heart  is  not  in  his  work, 
and  he  fails  to  convince  us  that  Beaudelaire  is  worthy 
of  our  study,  which  is,  perhaps,  as  well.  A  long  essay 
on  the  supernatural  in  fiction  is  written  with  the  idea  of 
making  us  trust  in  our  dream-life,  "  for  dreams  are  the 
primary  source  of  almost  everything  that  is  beautiful 
in  the  literature  which  treats  of  what  lies  beyond 
mere  daily  experience."  On  Ballads  Hearn  is  not  so 
good  :  he  notices  the  essentials,  the  refrain  or  bur- 
then, the  simplicity,  the  colloquialism,  its  persistence 
through  all  the  ages,  the  tendency  to  dwell  on  faery 
lore,  love,  or  war,  and  he  recommends  his  hearers  to 
read  Tam  Lin,  Thomas  the  Rhymer,  Child  Waters,  and 
Sir  Patrick  Spens,  but  he  somehow  fails  to  bring  out 
the  charm  of  balladry.  On  Herrick,  however,  he  is 
very  good :  '*  He  loved  the  pleasures  of  this  world, 
good  eating  and  drinking,  out-of-door  amusements, 
flowers,  birds,  and  women.  No  man  of  his  time  wrote 
more  love  poetry  or  love  poetry  so  good.  He  loved 
sports,  country  games,  and  dancing  :  much  of  his 
verse  is  vulgar,  but  the  best  of  his  poetry  was  of  extra- 
ordinary beauty  :  it  is  evident  that  one  who  could 
write  so  simply  and  joyfully  about  life  must  have  a 
good  heart.  He  never  took  religion  very  seriously 
(though  he  was  a  parson),  because  he  was  too  healthy, 
too  energetic,  too  naturally  happy.  One  reason 
for  his  continued  popularity  is  that  he  reflects  the  love 
of  English  customs  and  manners,  and  always  aims  at 
simplicity  :  he  felt  the  sadness  of  the  impermanency 
of  life,  but  being  naturally  joyous  he  stimulates 
his  readers  to  enjoy  life  as  much  as  possible.  He 
is  pagan  :  but  his  paganism  is  that  of  the  Renaiss- 
ance :    his  philosophy  is  that  of  mother-wit,  and  he 


272         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

remained  an  Elizabethan  at  heart  all  his  days,  writing 
about  bees  and  butterflies  and  honey  and  kisses  of 
girls  and  the  gods  of  Greece  and  Rome  and  the 
customs  of  Christmas  and  of  May  Day.  In  an  age  of 
corrupt  hearts  he  kept  the  joyousness  and  simplicity 
of  a  child — ^sometimes  of  a  naughty  child,  but  never 
of  a  very  bad  child.  A  careful  study  of  Herrick 
must  do  a  student  good,  in  the  best  of  all  directions, 
in  the  study  of  daintiness  of  feeling  united  with 
perfect  simplicity  and  cleverness  of  expression." 

He  sums  up  (in  a  further  lecture)  the  philosophy 
of  Berkeley  very  clearly.  "  He  was  one  of  the  most 
charming  men  who  ever  lived,  Pope,  Swift,  Addison, 
and  Steele  all  uniting  to  praise  him.  His  great  work 
was  the  destruction  of  materialism.  Nothing  exists 
except  mind  :  sight,  for  instance,  is  unreal,  because  we 
see  in  the  mind  what  we  imagine  to  be  outside  of  the 
mind.  All  that  we  imagine  we  perceive  by  the  senses, 
we  perceive  really  within  the  brain  only :  and  we 
have  no  proof  of  any  reality  outside  of  ourselves  in 
the  material  sense.  What  we  call  the  Universe 
exists  only  in  the  mind  of  Gk)d,  and  what  we  know  or 
feel  is  only  the  influence  of  His  power  upon  ourselves. 
If  we  follow  out  Berkeley's  reasoning  to  its  conclusion, 
the  result  is  pantheism.  Again,  it  never  occurred 
to  Berkeley  that  the  same  reasoning  might  be 
used  to  prove  the  non-existence  of  mind.  The  work 
of  Berkeley  was  like  a  generous  thaw,  freeing  the 
European  intellect  from  old  trammels :  he  wrote 
English  of  great  simplicity  and  clearness  ;  and  he 
brought  into  it  something  very  much  resembling  the 
fine  quality  of  the  beautiful  strength  and  lucidity  of 
Plato." 

Hearn  dwells  at  great  length,  in  his  essay  on  Poe's 
verse,  on  his  value  as  a  maker  of  sound,  citing  The 


LAFCADIO  HEARN  273 

Bells  as  a  proof  of  his  argument.  On  the  subject  of 
Longfellow  he  makes  the  useful  suggestion  that  it  "  is 
a  very  good  test  of  an  Englishman's  ability  to  feel 
poetry  simply  to  ask  him  whether  he  liked  Long- 
fellow as  a  boy  :  if  he  did  not  then  it  is  no  use  to 
talk  to  him  on  the  subject  of  poetry  at  all."  "  Of 
all  the  poets  of  the  age,  none  was  so  completely 
romantic  as  Longfellow,  so  ideal,  so  fond  of  the 
spiritual  and  the  impossible.  .  .  .  Ever  the  favourite 
poet  of  youth,  without  appealing  to  sense  or  passion, 
his  work  yet  remains  in  the  memory  :  his  heart  and 
his  thought  never  growing,  though  his  power  as  a 
poet  constantly  grew.  In  his  vast  reading  he  was 
eternally  seeking  and  finding  subjects  or  ideas  in 
accord  with  his  beautiful  youthfulness  of  spirit : 
therefore,  he  remains  the  poet  of  young  men,  his 
charm  resting  chiefly  on  his  quality  of  '  ghostliness.' 
We  seldom  find  that  he  is  really  great :  but  he  touches 
the  heart  just  as  well  as  the  great  poets  do  and  by 
very  much  simpler  means.  Softness,  dreaminess, 
ghostliness,  these  are  the  virtues  of  Longfellow.  He 
is  not  a  painter  in  oils  :  he  is  only  a  painter  in  water- 
colours  ;  but  so  far  as  poetry  can  be  really  spoken  of 
as  water-colour  painting,  I  do  not  know  of  any  modern 
English  poet  who  can  even  compare  with  him : 
he  perceived  the  beauty  of  the  world  in  a  quite  special 
way,  feeling  the  ghostliness  of  Nature  in  all  her  mani- 
festations, and  reflecting  it  in  his  simple  verse,  without 
calling  to  his  help  any  religious  sentiment." 

Hearn  next  refers  his  readers  to  the  ethical  teaching 
contained  in  the  northern  philosophies,  quoting  at 
length  passages  of  great  beauty  from  the  Havamal, 
Men  are  warned  to  avoid  three  things  above  all : 
drink,  other  men's  wives,  and  thieves.  It  is  also 
full  of  sound  advice  on  the  virtue  of  silence,  and  the 

s 


274  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

folly  of  reckless  talk  :  it  shows  that  the  happiest  men 
are  those  who  know  a  little  of  many  things  and  no  one 
thing  perfectly  :  Heam  tries  to  prove  to  the  Japanese 
that  the  modem  Englishman  bases  his  whole  code  of 
life  on  this  philosophy  :  his  distrust  of  book-leaming, 
his  dislike  of  theories,  his  fortitude,  his  chivalry  to 
women,  his  caution,  his  moderation,  his  sense  of 
justice  ..."  All  European  people  regard  the  English 
as  the  most  suspicious,  the  most  reserved,  the  most 
imreceptive,  the  most  unfriendly,  the  coldest-hearted, 
and  the  most  domineering  of  all  Western  peoples. 
They  speak  highly  of  their  qualities  of  energy,  courage, 
honour,  and  justice,  and  acknowledge  that  the 
English  character  is  especially  well  fitted  for  the 
struggle  of  life :  it  is  the  best  social  armour  and 
panoply  of  war :  it  is  not  a  lovable  nor  an  amiable 
character  :  it  is  not  even  kindly.  But  it  is  grand,  and 
its  success  has  been  the  best  proof  of  its  value.  The 
great  difference  between  English  society  and  other 
societies  is  that  the  hardness  of  character  is  Very 
much  greater."  But  a  study  of  the  Havamal  and  of 
English  society  leads  to  thoughts  on  society  in  general 
and  the  warfare  of  man  and  man.  "  That  is  why 
thinkers,  poets,  philosophers  in  all  ages  have  tried  to 
find  solitude,  although  the  prizes  of  thought  can  only 
there  be  won.  After  all,  whatever  we  may  think 
about  the  cruelty  and  treachery  of  the  social  world,  it 
does  great  things  in  the  end.  It  quickens  judgment, 
deepens  intelligence,  enforces  the  acquisition  of  self- 
control,  creates  mental  and  moral  strength,  but  it  does 
not  increase  human  happiness."  "  The  truly  wise 
man  cannot  be  happy." 

In  an  essay  on  "  Beyond  Man  "  he  takes  the  oppor- 
timity  of  showing  his  contempt  for  Nietzsche : 
'•  undeveloped  and  ill-balanced  thinking  "  is  the  phrase 
he  adopts  to    sum  up  the  Nietzschean  philosophy. 


LAFCADIO  HEARN  275 

His  idea  of  the  Beyond  Man  is  something  far  nobler 
than  Nietzsche's  Superman.  "  Could  a  world  exist," 
he  asks,  "  in  which  the  nature  of  all  the  inhabitants 
would  be  so  moral  that  the  mere  idea  of  what  is 
immoral  could  not  exist  ?  "  Look  for  a  moment  at 
ants.  Their  women  have  no  sex :  they  are  more 
than  vestals :  their  soldiers  are  amazons :  their 
males  small  and  weak,  suffered  to  become  the  bride- 
grooms of  a  night  and  then  to  die  :  this  suppression 
of  sex  is  not  natural,  but  artificial :  it  is  voluntary  : 
by  a  systematic  method  of  nourishment  ants  have 
found  that  they  can  suppress  or  develop  sex  as  they 
please.  It  vanishes  whenever  unnecessary :  when 
necessary,  after  a  war  or  calamity,  it  is  called  into 
existence  again.  Ants  have  entirely  got  rid  of  the 
selfish  impulse  :  even  hunger  and  thirst  allow  of  no 
selfish  gratification.  The  entire  life  of  the  community 
is  devoted  to  the  common  good  and  to  mutual  help 
and  to  the  care  of  the  yoimg.  They  have  no  religion, 
no  sense  of  duty  :  but  their  whole  life  is  religion  in 
the  practical  sense.  They  have  a  perfect  community, 
in  which  no  one  thinks  of  property  except  as  a  state 
affair,  no  ambition,  no  jealousy,  no  selfishness. 
"  Gk)  to  the  ant,  thou  sluggard,  consider  her  ways." 
The  question  that  is  raised  is  "  Will  man  ever  rise  to 
something  like  the  condition  of  ants  ?" 

There  then  follows  a  succession  of  essays  that  are 
peculiarly  Japanese  in  arrangement :  no  English  critic 
would  ever  think  of  grouping  all  the  poetry  about  tree- 
spirits,  all  the  poems  about  insects,  birds,  night,  and 
so  on  in  separate,  self-contained  lectures,  but  the  result 
of  this  method  is  eminently  satisfactory :  Hearn 
lightly  touches  on  and  explains  all  the  mythological 
legends  like  those  of  Itylus,  Philomela,  Procne, 
and  Arachne,  and  shows  how  English  poets  have 
dwelt    lovingly    on    nightingales,    larks,    swallows, 


276  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

hamadryads,  butterflies,  dragon-flies,  bees,  grass- 
hoppers, crickets,  spiders,  ants,  May-flies,  doves, 
cuckoos,  larks,  sea-gulls,  hawks,  and  all  the  host  of 
beautiful  living  things  that  fly  and  crawl  about  us. 
In  this  way  he  introduced  scores  of  poems  which 
he  would  otherwise  not  have  been  able  to  bring  before 
the  notice  of  his  pupils,  and  these  essays  though  long, 
well  repay  careful  reading.  His  lectures  close  with 
a  farewell  address,  in  which  he  again  implores  the 
adolescent  Japanese  student,  however  busy  he  may 
be,  to  devote  some  portion  of  every  day  to  the  creation 
of  literature.  "  Even  if  you  should  give  only  ten 
minutes  a  day,  that  will  mean  a  great  deal  at  the  end 
of  a  year.  I  hope  that  if  any  of  you  really  love 
literature  you  will  remember  my  words  and  never 
think  yourselves  too  busy  to  study  a  little,  even 
though  it  may  be  only  for  ten  or  fifteen  minutes  a  day." 
It  would  be  hard  to  over-estimate  the  enormous 
influence  which  such  an  inspiring  teacher  and  idealistic 
interpreter  exercised  over  the  minds  of  those  who 
heard  him.  To  the  growing  English  boy,  with  a 
leaning  towards  literature,  I  can  think  of  no  books 
which  could  be  more  useful,  for  Heam  not  only  shows 
us  what  to  read,  but  what  is  far  more  difficult,  how 
to  set  about  reading :  he  gives  us  the  incentive,  and  he 
attunes  us  to  the  right  mood.  To  read  great  masters 
in  the  spirit  of  Heam  is  to  be  uplifted  to  an  astonishing 
degree :  he  makes  everything  clear,  he  helps  us  to 
wrest  the  secret  from  out  of  the  heart  of  even  the 
most  obscure :  he  removes  completely  the  terror 
with  which  so  many  of  us  approach  writers  of  the 
stamp  of  Berkeley  and  Locke  ;  he  makes  us  concentrate 
always  on  the  ulterior  meaning  behind  the  mere  music 
of  poetry,  and  under  his  guidance  we  find  a  straight 
path  to  the  heart  of  a  writer  and  the  soul  of  a  people. 


VI 

SIR  EDWARD  COOK 

IN  Literary  Recreations  Sir  Edward  Cook  touches 
on  a  most  important  point  in  criticism  when  he 
states  that  one  of  the  only  reasons  for  a  man 
daring  to  write  a  book  about  books  is  his  desire  or 
power  of  communicating  to  his  readers  the  very 
sincere  pleasure  he  has  found  in  them  himself.  "  My 
desire,"  he  says,  "  is  the  sole  reason  for  my  undertaking 
so  Herculean  a  task" :  his  power  is  obvious  from  the 
first  page  of  his  book  to  the  last. 

His  first  paper,  on  "  The  Art  of  Biography,"  teems 
with  brilliant  ideas.  A  good  biographer  must  have, 
like  Boswell,  an  instinct  for  what  is  interesting  and 
characteristic,  and  know  how  to  arrange,  select,  plan, 
and  present.  The  rules  to  be  observed  are  "  Brevity 
and  Relevance,"  to  keep  the  man  in  the  foregroimd, 
to  make  him  stand  out  as  a  person  from  the  back- 
ground of  event,  action,  and  circumstance  (which  is 
why  the  best  biographies  are  more  often  of  men  of 
letters  than  of  men  of  action).  A  book  which  pro- 
claims itself  the  lAfe  and  Times  of  Somebody  is  a 
hybrid,  little  likely  to  possess  artistic  merit  as  bio- 
graphy. The  true  biographer  will  similarly  beware  of 
Somebody  and  His  Circle.  His  work  is  to  be  relevant 
to  an  individual. 

Sir  Edward  Cook  finds  the  conventional  first 
chapter  on  Ancestry  "  as  tiresome  as  the  introduction 
to  a  Waverley  novel."     Researches  into  hereditary 

influences  are  too  often  a  snare  to  the  biographer ; 

277 


278  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

he  "  tends  to  see  significance  in  everything  :  char- 
acteristic carelessness  if  the  hero  drops  his  pipe  : 
and  characteristic  carefuhiess  if  he  picks  it  up  again." 
How  much  worse  to  trace  back  characteristics  to 
ancestors  1  Another  danger  of  irrelevance  lurks  in  a 
Life  and  Letters.  Again,  the  man  who  writes  a  bio- 
graphy full  of  irrelevant  good  things  will  have  them 
picked  out  by  others  who  will  fit  them  into  their  proper 
places.  He  does  but  open  a  quarry.  "  He  who  writes 
with  strict  respect  for  the  conditions  of  his  art  may 
carve  a  statue." 

Next  to  Relevance  come  Selection  and  Arrange- 
ment :  it  must  be  imderstood  that  not  ever3rthing 
that  is  relevant  can  be  included  :  it  is,  however,  just 
as  easy  to  err  by  leaving  out  as  by  putting  in. 

"  To  tell  '  sacred  '  things  aright  requires  the  nicest 
tact,  but  to  leave  them  altogether  untold  is  to  strip 
the  biography  of  the  things  best  worth  telling.  It 
is  to  turn  the  key  on  the  heart  of  the  subject." 

Arrangement  again  calls  for  very  great  care.  In 
the  case  of  a  full  and  varied  life,  the  severely  chrono- 
logical method,  consistently  applied  throughout,  is 
almost  certainly  the  worst.  It  becomes  worse  if 
letters,  too,  are  given  in  mere  chronological  order. 
The  object  of  the  biographer  is  to  produce  an  ordered 
impression,  not  the  effect  of  a  kaleidoscope.  Again, 
he  must  be  honest.  Sir  Edward  Cook  rightly  finds 
fault  with  Dowden's  Life  of  Shelley  as  savouring  of 
a  partiality  passing  the  bounds  of  common  sense. 
"  The  sugar-candied  mood  is  as  dangerous  as  the  too 
candid." 

A  good  subject  is  a  sine  qua  non,  but  moral  goodness 
is  not  in  itself  a  sufficient  recommendation.  There  are 
excellent  biographies  and  autobiographies  of  rascals, 
and  there  are  very  dull  books  about  saints.     The 


SIR  EDWARD  COOK  279 

first  qualifications  of  a  good  subject  are  that  the  life 
of  the  man  or  woman  should  be  really  memorable, 
that  thereTshould  be  a  marked  personality  behind 
the  actions,  that  the  character  should  be  distinctive 
and  interesting. 

A  second  element  in  the  goodness  of  biographical 
subject  is  the  existence  of  material  of  self-expression, 
clothed  in  attractive  and  intelligible  language.  Such 
material  may  exist  in  the  shape  of  diaries,  memoranda, 
letters,  or  recorded  conversations. 

Again,  contrasts  and  foils  are  often  useful :  a  hero 
postulates  a  villain  :  it  is  one  of  the  ironies  of  the  art 
of  biography  that  the  lives  which,  from  some  points 
of  view,  are  best  worth  writing  are  those  which 
nobody  will  read  and  which,  therefore,  are  seldom 
written,  for  as  George  Eliot  said  :  "  the  growing  good 
of  the  world  is  partly  dependent  on  unhistoric  acts  : 
and  that  things  are  not  so  ill  with  you  and  me  as  they 
might  have  been,  is  half  owing  to  the  number  who 
lived  faithfully  a  hidden  life  and  rest  in  unvisited 
tombs." 

As  Ruskin's  most  able  editor  we  should  expect  Sir 
Edward  Cook  to  write  well  on  Ruskin's  style,  which 
is  the  subject  of  his  second  paper.  First  he  cites  other 
men's  views  :  Mr  Asquith's  epithets  of  "  intellectual 
independence,"  "  spiritual  insight,"  and  "  golden - 
tongued  eloquence  "  :  Lord  Morley's  "  one  of  the 
three  giants  of  prose  style  in  the  nineteenth  century," 
and  Lord  Acton's  "  doubled  the  opulence  and  signifi- 
cance of  language  and  made  prose  more  penetrating 
than  anything  but  the  highest  poetry." 

"  The  secret  of  Ruskin's  style  at  bottom,"  says  Sir 
Edward  Cook,  "  nearly  all  comes  to  this  :  that  he  had 
something  to  say,  that  he  said  it  in  the  way  that  was 
natural  to  him,  and  that  nature  had  endowed  him 


280         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

•with  exquisite  sensibility."  The  essential  features 
are  underived  and  incommunicable  :  the  style  is  the 
man.  His  gift  was  of  nature  :  the  glow,  the  colour, 
the  music,  the  exuberance  of  language  are  found  in  his 
notes  and  diaries  no  less  than  in  his  finished  books. 
Throughout  his  working  life  he  saw  with  his  own 
eyes,  he  felt  with  his  own  heart,  and  what  he  leamt 
was  knowledge  at  first  hand.  He  read  widely  and 
discursively,  but  always  in  the  original  texts,  which 
accounts  for  some  of  his  waywardness  and  ingenious 
perversity  although  it  preserved  his  intellectual  in- 
dependence. In  his  autobiography  he  tells  us  that 
his  Uterary  work  was  done  as  quietly  and  methodically 
as  a  piece  of  tapestry,  but  he  took  infinite  pains  in 
getting  the  stitches  right.  His  conmiand  of  language 
was  due  to  the  constant  habit  of  never  allowing  a 
sentence  to  pass  in  which  he  had  not  considered 
whether,  for  the  vital  word  in  it,  a  better  could  be 
found  in  the  dictionary.  There  is  an  interesting 
story  of  Ruskin's  father  telling  his  son's  publisher  to 
send  in  a  separate  account  for  corrections  to  him. 
"  Don't  let  my  son  know  :  John  must  have  his  things 
as  he  likes  them  :  pay  him  whatever  would  become 
due,  apart  from  corrections,  and  send  in  a  separate 
bill  for  them  to  me."  Paragraphs  and  chapters  were 
written  over  and  over  again  before  they  satisfied 
him.  There  is,  however,  as  Sir  Edward  Cook 
notices,  a  danger  in  taking  overmuch  thought  over 
one's  style  :  "  The  mischief  comes,  not  from  taking 
pains  about  the  manner  of  saying  a  thing,  but  only 
when  the  manner  begins  to  be  of  more  moment  than 
the  matter,  a  mischief  from  which  Ruskin,  in  his 
earlier  work,  did  not  escape.  '  All  my  life,'  he  says, 
*  I  have  been  talking  to  the  people,  and  they  have 
listened,  not  to  what  I  say  but  to  how  I  say  it.' " 


SIR  EDWARD  COOK  281 

Too  much  attention  was  called  to  the  manner  of  his 
style  by  palpable  display,  but  later  "  he  became 
master  not  more  of  rhetorical  pomp  and  of  the  long 
rolling  sentence  than  of  concentration,  closely  packed 
with  thought.  He  revised  and  elaborated  in  order  to 
clarify,  to  chasten,  to  deepen,  and  to  impress."  It  is 
the  very  number  of  his  gifts  that  so  astonishes  us  in 
Ruskin.  "  Not  only  was  he  possessed  of  acute  sensi- 
bility and  of  a  most  original  mind,  but  he  had  a  great 
mastery  of  language  ;  he  was  something  of  a  botanist, 
geologist,  and  mineralogist,  and  I  doubt  whether 
he  ever  sat  down  to  describe  anything  with  the  pen 
which  he  had  not  spent  hours  in  drawing  with  the 
pencil."  Sir  Edward  Cook  finishes  his  most  suggestive 
critical  study  of  the  great  stylist  by  recommending 
five  examples  of  his  prose  style  as  especially  worthy 
of  our  study ;  the  chapter  on  "  The  Region  of  the 
Rain  Cloud,"  the  description  of  the  narcissus  fields 
on  the  mountain-side  about  Vevay,  the  description  of 
the  old  tower  of  Calais  Church,  all  in  Modem  Painters, 
the  description  of  an  old  boat  at  the  beginning  of 
The  Harbours  of  England,  and  the  description  of  the 
Rhone  at  Geneva  in  Prceterita. 

The  Art  of  Indexing  is  to  me  the  most  charming  of 
these  papers.  "  There  is  no  book,"  he  begins,  "  so 
good  that  it  is  not  made  better  by  an  index,  and  no 
book  so  bad  that  it  may  not  by  this  adjunct  escape 
the  worst  condemnation."  He  rightly  goes  on  to 
assert  that  the  importance  of  the  art  of  indexing  is 
little  understood :  "  Many  people  do  not  even 
know  that  it  is  an  art  at  all." 

Two  classes  of  books  in  particular  should  always 
have  a  good  index — ^the  best  books  and  the  most  un- 
readable books.  "  The  best  books,  because  there  is  so 
much  in  them  that  a  reader  will  want  to  find  again : 


282  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

the  worst  books,  because  lacking  an  index  they  are 
without  any  reason  for  existing  at  all."  He  even 
urges,  as  Doctor  Johnson  did  to  Richardson,  apropos 
of  Clarissa  Harlowe,  that  novels  should  have  an 
index.  His  argument  for  this  departure  is  ingenious. 
"  A  biography  cannot  be  considered  complete  without 
an  index.  "Why  not  also  a  novel  ?  The  great  char- 
acters of  fiction  are  much  more  worthy  of  memory, 
and  do,  in  fact,  Uve  much  longer,  than  the  subjects 
of  most  biographies."  For  the  life  after  death  it  is 
not  necessary  that  a  man  or  a  woman  should  have 
Uved.  But  Sir  Edward  Cook  does  not  suggest  that  time 
must  be  allowed  to  set  its  seal  on  a  noveUst's  work 
before  the  day  comes  for  an  index.  He  then  goes  on  to 
define  what  he  means  by  an  index.  "  An  index  is 
meant  to  be  a  pointer  and  to  serve  as  a  time-saving 
machine.  It  should  enable  a  reader,  first,  to  find 
readily  the  place  where  the  author  has  said  a  particu- 
lar thing,  and,  secondly,  it  should  enable  him  to  find 
all  that  the  book  has  said  on  a  particular  subject." 
In  applying  these  principles  he  lays  down  as  the  first 
rule,  one  book  one  index.  One  index  alphabetically 
arranged  is  the  only  right  plan.  The  next  point  is  to 
settle  what  to  include  in  the  index.  Proper  names, 
of  course,  are  the  first  essential ;  then,  every  subject  on 
which  the  indexer  finds  any  substantial  discussion  :  he 
is  working  for  an  unknown  future,  and  for  readers  whose 
tastes  and  interests  he  cannot  know.  He  must,  for 
this  purpose,  exercise  discrimination.  A  good  index 
will  have  a  great  many  titles  :  then  comes  the  question 
of  arrangement.  The  most  frequent  and  heinous 
vice  is  the  practice  of  following  a  subject-heading  by 
long  strings  of  page  numbers  without  any  indication 
of  what  you  will  find  on  the  several  pages  :  this  is  to 
fob  you  off  with  an  index  which  is  no  index.  .  .  . 


SIR  EDWARD  COOK  283 

Where  then  a  book  contains  many  mentions  of  a 
person  or  a  subject,  the  indexer  must  analyse  them 
and  tell  you  not  only  on  what  page  each  mention  will 
be  found,  but  also  what  is  the  subject  of  the  mention 
on  each  page.  This  is  the  most  difficult  and  least 
mechanical  part  of  an  indexer's  work.  If  the  reader 
thinks  that  anybody  can  do  it,  let  him  try  his  hand 
and  he  will  learn  better.  It  needs  much  time,  thought, 
and  judgment  to  seize  the  true  sense  of  a  passage,  to 
decide  what  description  will  best  facilitate  reference, 
and  then  to  make  the  entry  with  the  concision  required 
in  an  index.  He  quotes  the  classic  example  of  how 
not  to  do  it,  which  is  alleged  to  occur  in  a  law  book  : 

Best,  Mr  Justice,  his  great  mind,  p.  101. 

On  turning  to  the  page  one  is  supposed  to  have  found 
the  statement  that  "  Mr  Justice  Best  said  he  had  a 
great  mind  to  commit  the  man  for  trial."  Sir  Edward 
Cook  takes  advantage  of  this  delicious  story  to  press 
home  the  point  that  the  indexer  should  be  impartial. 
His  business  is  to  be  a  signpost,  not  a  critic.  "  Let 
no  damned  Tory  index  my  History,"  said  Macaulay. 

How,  next  rises  the  question,  is  the  indexer  to 
arrange  the  entries  under  each  heading  after  he  has 
sorted  them  out  under  proper  names  or  subjects  ? 
The  plan  generally  adopted  is  to  arrange  the  entries 
in  the  order  in  which  the  passages  indicated  by  them 
occur  in  the  book,  but  Sir  Edward  Cook  brings  forward 
several  grave  objections  to  this,  and  suggests  that  in 
every  long  heading  in  an  index  there  should  be  sub- 
headings, and  the  order  of  arrangement  under  each 
should  be  alphabetical.  It  greatly  adds  to  the  labour 
of  the  indexer,  but  it  also  greatly  helps  facility  of 
reference.  The  number  and  kind  of  sub-heads  must 
depend  on  the  nature  and  volume  of  the  matter  in 


284  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

hand.  It  may  be  helpful  sometunes  to  divide  refer- 
ences to  general  subjects  into  (1)  leading  ideas  or 
principal  passages,  and  (2)  general  references.  In  (2) 
entries  should  be  alphabetical,  but  in  (1)  the  order  may 
well  be  explanatory  and  logical.  Should  the  author 
do  his  own  indexing  ?  Sir  Edward  Cook  thinks  that 
he  should  where  possible  because  "  there  is  nothing 
like  making  an  index  for  discovering  inconsistencies 
and  needless  repetitions :  few  authors  have  the 
patience,  but  those  who  have  not  should  recognise  the 
importance  of  the  art  and  make  due  acknowledgment 
so  that  indexing  might  be  established  as  one  of  the 
minor  literary  arts."  "  Index  by  So-and-So  in  the 
forefront  of  a  book  would  be  at  least  as  reasonable  as 
'  Wigs  by  Thingummy,'  on  the  programme  of  Hamlet." 
A  list  of  statistics  on  the  scale  for  an  index  follows, 
Lord  Morley's  Recollections  holding  the  record  of 
1  to  10.  The  book  takes  up  760  pages  and  the  index, 
in  small  print  and  double  column,  76.  He  ends  on  a 
note  of  general  comment  of  very  great  value. 

"  A  perusal  of  the  pages  of  an  index,  and  even  the 
process  of  making  it,  are  not  dull,  dead  things.  I 
confess  that  when  I  look  into  a  new  book,  especially 
if  it  be  one  which  I  have  not  yet  bought,  I  turn  first 
to  the  index.  There  is  no  better  way  of  sampling  a 
book.  From  reviews  you  can  never  tell.  The  re- 
viewer's taste,  if  he  blames,  may  not  be  yours ;  and 
if  he  praises  and  gives  you  specimens  you  may  find 
that  he  has  picked  out  all  the  plums  and  that  the  rest 
is  leather  and  prunella.  An  index  gives  you  a  taste 
of  the  quality  at  once,  which,  perhaps,  may  be  why 
some  authors  and  publishers  are  so  shy  of  it.  It  is 
not  an  easy  art,  but  if  you  persevere  you  may  find  the 
same  sort  of  satisfaction  that  a  good  housewife  is  said 
to  find  in  a  spring-cleaning  or  a  scholar  in  rearranging 


SIR  EDWARD  COOK  285 

his  books.  ...  A  master  of  worldly  wisdom  gave 
this  among  other  injunctions  to  his  pupils  :  '  Never 
drudge.'  The  scholar,  when  trial  is  made  of  his 
patience,  acts  on  a  different  precept : '  Never  grudge.'  " 
An  extremely  effective  description  of  the  inception 
and  progress  of  the  Cornhill  Magazine  is  the  subject  of 
Fifty  Years  of  a  Literary  Magazine.  "  Thackeray's 
latest  books,  the  last  pages  of  Charlotte  Bronte,  the 
first  appearances  of  many  a  poem  by  Tennyson, 
Browning,  Mrs  Browning,  Meredith,  and  Swinburne, 
and  many  a  collected  volume  by  Matthew  Arnold, 
J.  A.  Symonds,  Leslie  Stephen,  Robert  Louis  Steven- 
son, and  a  host  of  other  '  writers  of  eminence  '  are 
all  to  be  found  in  the  back  numbers  of  the  Cornhill." 
Mr  George  Smith,  the  only  begetter  of  the  magazine, 
was  the  first  man  to  combine  the  monthly  review  and 
the  serial  publication  of  novels  in  one  magazine  to  be 
soldatthepriceof  the  then  cheapest  monthly  periodi- 
cal. Thackeray  was  made  editor,  and  though  Trollope 
accuses  him  of  too  thin  a  skin  and  of  being  un- 
methodical, he  made  a  great  success  of  it.  It  is 
startling  to-day  to  think  that  "  Mrs  Grundyism  " 
was  powerful  enough  to  prevent  Mrs  Browning, 
Thomas  Hardy,  and  Ruskin  from  continuing  certain 
contributions,  which  must  have  hurt  Thackeray  very 
much,  but  he  must  have  been  compensated  by  the 
thought  that  he  secured  for  his  venture  a  circulation 
of  100,000  copies  a  month  almost  at  once,  as  well  as 
by  the  thought  that  he  set  a  tone  and  a  standard  of 
high  humane  culture  which  has  never  left  it.  The 
Thackeray  touch  can  still  be  traced  in  it  to-day. 
Leslie  Stephen,  James  Payn,  and  Reginald  Smith 
each  succeeded  in  turn  to  the  editorship,  and  kept  up 
the  tradition  by  ripe  judicious  selection  and  high  rates 
of  pay.    A  single  number  of  the  magazine  once  cost 


286  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

George  Smith  £1183,  and  in  four  years  he  paid  £82,280 
to  literary  contributors^  alone,  and  £4876  to  artists 
for  illustrations.  Thackeray  was  then  getting  twelve 
guineas  a  page  and  George  Eliot  £583  for  a  single 
instalment  of  Romola.  '^ 

"  To-day  the  greatest  circulations  belong  to  periodi- 
cals of  a  very  different  kind.  We  hear  much  in  this  con- 
nexion about  a  decadence  in  the  popular  taste.  I  do  not 
believe  it.  The  fallacy  consists  in  an  implied  assump- 
tion that  persons  who,  fifty  years  ago,  would  have  read 
Comhill  now  read  the  more  frivolous  magazines.  The 
fact  is  that  the  latter  class  of  readers  were,  fifty  years 
ago,  reading  either  nothing  or  periodicals  far  more 
rubbishy.  There  is  another  side  of  the  case.  The 
market  for  good  literature,  whether  in  books  or  in 
periodicals,  is  larger  to-day  than  it  has  ever  been, 
but  the  supply  is  provided  by  many  more  competitors. 
There  are  fewer  literary  magazines,  but  in  the 
magazines  there  is  as  much  literature."  He  then 
passes  on  to  Literature  and  Modern  Journalism,  a 
noble  defence  of  the  art  and  craft  of  writing  for  the 
newspapers.  He  notes  how  all  the  great  writers 
combine  to  ridicule  the  mere  joumaUst,  jfrom  Dickens 
(himself  once  editor  of  The  Daily  News)  in  The  Eatan- 
swiU  Gazette,  and  Thackeray  in  Philip,  to  Lord  Morley, 
who  dismisses  the  newspaper  Press  in  trenchant 
phrase  as  "  that  huge  engine  for  keeping  discussion  on 
a  low  level,"  Ruskin,  who  talks  of  "so  many  square 
leagues  of  dirtily-printed  falsehood,"  Leslie  Stephen, 
who  defines  journalism  as  "  writing  for  pay  upon 
matters  of  which  you  are  ignorant,"  and  Thomas 
Hardy,  most  merciless  of  all,  who,  in  a  lecture,  once 
said :  "  While  millions  have  lately  been  learning  to 
read,  few  of  them  have  been  learning  to  discriminate  ; 
and  the  result  is  an  appalling  increase  every  day  in 


SIR  EDWARD  COOK  287 

slipshod  writing  that  would  not  have  been  tolerated 
for  one  moment  a  hundred  years  ago  .  .  .  writing 
is  now  done  by  men,  and  still  more  by  women,  who 
are  utterly  incapable  of,  and  unconscious  of,  that 
grin  of  delight  which  William  Morris  assured  us 
comes  over  the  real  artist,  either  in  letters  or  in  other 
forms  of  art,  at  a  close  approximation  to,  if  not  an 
exact  achievement  of,  his  ideal." 

"  The  journalist,"  retorts  Sir  Edward  Cook,  "  seems 
to  me  to  stand  in  a  middle  position  between  the  expert 
and  the  complete  ignoramus.  When  he  starts  upon  a 
subject  he  often  knows  very  little  about  it,  but  he 
sometimes  picks  up  much  as  he  goes  along."  "  When 
I  want  to  leam  a  subject,"  said  Disraeli,  "  I  sit  down 
to  write  a  book  about  it.  ..."  "The  connexion 
between  literature  and  journalism  has  been  and  is 
still  close,  and  there  is  certainly  as  much  good  writing 
in  the  Press  as  at  any  earlier  time.  The  spirit  of 
literature  invades  journalism  to-day,  and  the  publica- 
tion of  a  great  book  is  recognised  as  an  event  not 
much  less  important  than  the  affairs  of  a  cinema 
artist."  "  The  Literary  Supplement  of  '  The  Times  ' 
seems  to  me  to  show  a  higher  and  more  evenly  sus- 
tained level  of  literary  merit  than  I  can  remember  in 
any  newspaper  of  my  time."  The  tone  and  manners 
of  the  Press  reflect  those  of  the  world  it  mirrors,  and 
these  are  certainly  an  improvement  to-day  on  what 
they  were  a  hundred  years  ago.  "  The  idea  that 
modem  journalism  is  harmful  to  literature  because  its 
scrappiness  encourages  triviality  and  desultoriness 
is  founded  on  a  misconception."  "  The  Tit-hits 
journalism  is  not  entirely  occupied  with  the  diffusion 
of  useless  knowledge  :  the  '  Home  Journals  '  owe 
their  success  to  the  dissemination  of  comforting  moral 
platitudes  which  are,  after  all,  only  crude  and  prosaic 


288  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

echoes  of  Tennyson."  "  But  perhaps  the  best  that 
can  be  said  for  scrappy  journahsm  is  that  it  affords 
to  millions  of  people  an  innocent  pastime  ...  it 
is  a  delusion  to  suppose,  when  one  sees,  say  during 
the  limcheon  hour  in  the  City,  boys  and  girls  in  St 
Paul's  Churchyard  devouring  their  favourite  Scraps 
or  Cuts  that  they  would  otherwise  be  immersed  in 
contemplation  of  the  Cathedral  or  the  study  of  Philo- 
sophy. It  is  probable  that  the  newspapers  are 
schoolmasters  which  bring  a  certain  number  of  the 
great  public  to  read  other  things.  It  is  certain  that 
the  extension  of  the  popular  newspaper  press  has 
synchronised  with  an  extension  of  cheap  editions  of 
classical  literature,  and  it  is  unlikely  that  the  publishers 
put  these  reprints  upon  the  market  solely  from  a 
disinterested  love  of  good  literature."  After  all, 
"  journalese  "  is  not  so  terrible  as  "  officialese,"  and 
it  must  be  remembered  that  there  are  millions  of 
people  who  read  nothing  except  what  the  journalists 
write.  Having  concluded  his  defence.  Sir  Edward 
Cook  makes  an  appeal  to  all  writers. 

"  There  is  nothing  which  a  journalist  should  culti- 
vate more  scrupulously  than  the  craftsman's  con- 
science, and  there  is  no  better  training  in  this  than 
the  study  of  good  literature."  "  If  my  manner  of 
speaking  is  good,"  said  John  Bright,  "  it  may  have 
become  so  from  reading  what  is  good,  so  that  the 
eye  and  the  ears  and  the  mind  may  become  familiar 
with  good  language." 

The  writer,  however  humble  may  be  his  sphere, 
who  has  some  knowledge  and  appreciation  of  good 
literature,  may  always  keep  an  ideal  before  him.  He 
will  be  able  then  to  achieve  that  grin  of  delight 
of  which  William  Morris  speaks  as  coming  over  the 
real  artist  on  achieving  his  ideal. 


SIR  EDWARD  COOK  289 

His  essay  on  Words  and  the  War  will  increase  in 
interest  as  the  years  go  on,  for  some  of  the  words 
coined  since  1914  would  be  in  danger  of  being  for- 
gotten were  it  not  for  their  preservation  in  books  of 
this  sort.  "  A  page  of  history  may  be  summed  up  in  a 
new  word  or  phrase  or  in  the  altered  sense  of  an  old 
one."  It  would  be  indeed  ungrateful  if  our  children 
were  allowed  to  forget  the  origin  of  such  heroic 
names  as  Anzac,  Waacs,  and  Wrens.  What  will  the 
youth  of  a  hundred  years  hence  be  able  to  make  of 
such  sentences  as  "  stalled  his  bus  and  pancaked 
thirty  feet,  crashed  completely,  put  a  vertical  gust 
up  me  .  .  .  just  as  I  was  starting  my  solo  flip  in  a 
rumpty  "  ?  Is  there  ever  likely  to  be  a  term  of 
endearment  quite  so  soul-satisfying  as  to  supersede 
"  Blighty  "  ?  A  history  of  the  war  in  little  might  be 
written  out  of  the  words  it  has  brought  into  common 
use. 

His  seventh  essay,  A  Study  in  Superlatives,  is 
in  some  ways  the  most  charming  in  the  book.  It  has, 
at  any  rate,  the  very  great  merit  of  sending  the  reader 
back  to  re-read  many  of  the  masterpieces  of  literature 
in  order  to  make  up  his  mind  afresh  as  to  which  is 
the  finest  line  in  poetry,  the  world's  greatest  ode, 
and  so  on.  We  all  know,  as  Lord  Morley  said,  "that 
we  are  not  called  upon  to  place  great  men  as  if  they 
were  collegians  in  a  class-list."  We  are  not  called  upon, 
it  is  true,  but  we  all  do  it;  and,  after  all,  there  is  much 
to  be  said  in  favour  of  good  lovers  and  good  haters  of 
books.  It  is  this  characteristic  that  so  pleases  us  or  in- 
furiates us  in  Swinburne,  for  instance;  as  when  he  says  of 
a  certain  piece  that  it  is  "  so  much  the  noblest  of  sacred 
poems  in  our  language  that  there  is  none  which  comes 
near  it  enough  to  stand  second,"  a  piece,  by  the  way, 
which  one  need  scarcely  say,  is  not  to  be  found  in  any 

T 


290  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

hymn-book.  "It  is  a  disgrace,"  says  Sir  Edward 
Cook,  "  of  long  standing  to  the  English  Church  that 
•with  so  great  a  wealth  of  religious  poetry  at  choice, 
so  much  doggerel  should  be  used  in  places  where  they 
sing  "  ;  a  sentiment  with  which  most  of  us  would 
cordially  agree. 

Ruskin  talks  of  the  epitaph  of  Simonides  on  the 
Spartans  who  fell  at  Thermopylae  as  "  the  noblest 
group  of  words  ever  uttered  by  man."  It  is  useful 
that  we  should  be  betrayed  into  stating  our  favourites, 
for  a  man  is  known  by  the  company  he  keeps  in  his 
reading,  by  the  authors  he  loves,  by  his  preferences 
and  aversions.  It  is,  for  instance,  enormously  help- 
ful to  us  to  know  that  Samuel  Butler  regarded 
Handel  and  Shakespeare  as  our  greatest  achieve- 
ments. With  regard  to  favourite  lines,  Mr  Gladstone 
plumped  for  "  Or  hear  old  Triton  blow  his  wreathed 
horn  "  and 

firfii  Ti  \tipopos  avipbs  fv(f>paipoifu  v6f]fia> 

Tennyson  chose  "  Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of 
setting  suns,"  and  Lord  Morley  as  "  the  most  melting 
and  melodious  single  verse," 

After  life's  fitful  fever  he  sleeps  well. 

The  anthologist  of  prose  and  verse  extracts  would  do 
well  to  study  famous  authors'  selections  of  the  best 
passages.  Homer,  Horace,  Burke's  panegyric  on 
Howard,  Carlyle,  Charlotte"  Bronte's  description  of 
Rachel  as  Vashti  in  Villette,  and  Virgil  are  among  the 
most  commonly  selected.  "  Amusement  may  be 
gained,"  says  Sir  Edward  Cook,  "  in  placing  the  five 
great  odes  of  Keats  in  order  of  merit.  Swinburne, 
in  this  instance,  gives  a  first  to  each."  "  Perhaps," 
he  says,  "the  two  nearest  to  absolute  perfection, 
to  the  triumphant  achievement  and  accomplishment 


SIR  EDWARD  COOK  291 

of  the  very  utmost  beauty  possible  to  human  words, 
may  be  that  to  Autumn,  and  that  on  a  Grecian  Urn  ; 
the  most  radiant,  fervent,  and  musical  is  that  to  a 
Nightingale ;  the  most  pictorial  and,  perhaps,  the 
tenderest  in  its  ardour  of  passionate  fancy  is  that  to 
Psyche ;  the  subtlest  in  sweetness  of  thought  and 
feeling  is  that  on  Melancholy. ^^  The  game,  as  Cook 
says,  has,  at  any  rate,  the  advantage  of  making  the 
players  refresh  their  memory  of  pieces  of  which  it  has 
been  said  that  "  Greater  lyrical  poetry  the  world  may 
have  seen  than  any  that  is  in  these,  lovelier  it  surely 
has  never  seen  nor  ever  can  it  possibly  see."  I, 
for  one,  demur  from  Hallam's  judgment  in  pronounc- 
ing Milton's  Ode  on  the  Nativity  as  the  finest  in  the 
English  language.  Sir  Edward  Cook  allows  that  it 
may  be  true  of  regular  odes,  but  among  irregular  odes 
is  any  finer,  he  asks,  than  Tennyson's  On  the  Death  of 
the  Duke  of  Wellington  ? — an  ode  which  was  almost 
universally  depreciated  by  the  critics  on  its  appearance 
on  account  of  its  unconventionality  and  un-Tenny- 
sonian  note.  In  choosing  the  best  work  of  any  poet, 
Sir  Edward  Cook  suggests  that  it  is  a  tribute  to  Tenny- 
son's genius  that  opinion  is  still  divided  as  to  whether 
his  best  piece  was  written  when  he  was  26,  38,  or  76, 
while  it  is  imiversally  admitted  that  all  Wordsworth's 
best  work  was  done  between  the  ages  of  28  and  88,  and 
that  nobody  would  choose  anything  written  by  Brown- 
ing after  he  was  56,  or  Swinburne  after  he  was  42.  Don 
Quixote,  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield,  Heart  of  Midlothian, 
Les  Miserables,  Persuasion,  share  the  honours  of  the 
greatest  novel  ever  written,  as  Thucydides,  Tacitus, 
and  Gibbon  have  still  to  fight  for  premiership  among 
historians. 

His  penultimate  paper  on  The  Poetry  of  a  Painter 
deals  with   J.   M.   W.   Turner's  failure  to  become 


292  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

a  poet,  in  spite  of  the  utmost  industry  and  diligence 
and  a  very  highly  developed  imagination.  As  a 
public  lecturer  Turner  failed  in  spite  of  the  great 
pains  that  he  took  .  .  .  his  notebooks  are  full  of 
verses  and  contain  even  more  poetry  than  drawings. 

He  was,  at  any  rate,  able  to  appreciate  good  poetry 
when  he  met  it ;  he  takes  as  mottoes  for  some  of  his 
pictures  exceedingly  apt  lines  from  Milton  and 
Thomson,  the  favourite  poet  of  the  great  pubUc 
at  the  time.  He  fell  imder  Thomson's  spell  and 
imitated  him.  Akenside,  Ossian,  Scott,  and  Byron 
were  all  used  by  him  to  illustrate  his  pictures,  and 
his  sympathy  with  the  last  of  these  is  obvious.  The 
queer  thing  is  that  Turner  was  really  the  Shelley 
among  painters,  though  the  poet  never  saw  the  pictures 
and  the  painter  did  not  know  the  poems.  "  In  both 
there  is  a  strain  of  pensive  melancholy  joined  to  a  sense 
of  the  material  beauty  of  the  universe  which  finds 
expression  in  a  love  of  iridescence,  colour-depth, 
and  soft  mystery.  The  vast  landscapes  of  Turner's 
later  manner,  melting  into  indefinite  distance,  recall 
many  passages  in  Shelley's  Prometheus."  One  example 
out  of  many  very  apt  ones  given  by  Sir  Edward  Cook 
may  be  cited : 

Half  the  sky 
Was  roofed  with  clouds  of  rich  emblazonry, 
Dark  purple  at  the  zenith,  which  still  grew 
Down  the  steep  west  into  a  wondrous  hue 
Brighter  than  burning  gold. 

The  colouring  is  that  of  many  a  sky  of  Turner's. 
It  is  curious,  too,  to  notice  the  dates  :  the  production 
of  Alastor,  PrometheuSy  and  Julian  and  Maddalo 
synchronise  with  the  transition  to  Turner's  second 
and  more  aerial  period.     The  more  Turner  read,  and 


SIR  EDWARD  COOK  298 

the  more  his  art  of  painting  developed,  the  greater 
became  his  desire  to  write  poetry.  He  occasionally 
hits  on  a  good  line,  but  he  was  never  able  to  keep  at 
one  level  for  more  than  a  line  or  two  :  he  persistently 
tried  and  he  persistently  failed.  Sir  Edward  Cook 
attempts  to  explain  why  a  consummate  master  in 
one  art  should  strive  so  continually  after  expression 
in  another.  Something  was  due,  no  doubt,  to  his 
obstinate  pride  and  constant  ambition,  something  to 
mere  love  of  mystification.  He  was  shy,  sensitive, 
secretive,  ill-favoured,  of  humble  birth,  destitute  of 
the  graces,  and  wished  to  be  recognised  as  a  "  literary 
gentleman."    Browning's 

Does  he  paint  ?     He  fain  would  write  a  poem  .... 
Put  to  proof  art  alien  to  the  artist's, 
Once,  and  only  once,  and  for  one  only. 
So  to  be  the  man  and  leave  the  artist, 
Gain  the  man's  joy,  miss  the  artist's  sorrow, 

may  explain  matters  more  fully.  Turner,  we  learn, 
missed  the  man's  joy :  he  found  no  woman  of  sym- 
pathetic soul  to  love  him,  but  the  instinct  to  escape 
the  artist's  sorrow,  the  interest  of  self-expression,  was 
strong  within  him.  In  his  own  art  he  was  open  to 
unsympathetic  criticism.  "  What  is  the  use  of  them 
except  together  ?  "  he  asks.  He  turned  to  poetry  in 
the  hope  of  finding  a  medium  that  should  all-express 
him.  The  hope  failed  him.  "  Indistinctness  is  my 
forte,"  he  says  of  his  pictures.  The  same  is  true  of 
his  poetry ;  and  in  poetry  indistinctness  is  a  fault. 
He  lacked  the  logical  faculty,  the  feeling  for  beauty, 
and  even  for  coherence,  in  words  :  he  had  the  imagina- 
tion of  a  poet,  but  his  thoughts  travelled  faster  than 
his  language  could  follow.  So  the  double  gift  that  was 
Blake's  and  Rossetti's  was  denied  to  him.  He  never 
succeeded  in  explaining  his  pictures,   all  of  which 


294  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

require  many,  many  pages.  His  persistence  in  at- 
tempting verse  suggests  another  remark.  According 
to  Pater  all  art  aspires  towards  the  condition  of  music, 
a  theory  that  pleased  Whistler  because  it  irritated 
his  critics.  A  rival  theory  contends  that  all  art  tends 
to  pass  into  the  condition  of  poetry,  and  it  was  to  this 
view  that  Turner  inclined.  On  the  technical  side  his 
pictures  were  studies  in  colour,  in  his  mind  and 
intention  they  belonged  to  the  domain  of  the  poets. 
He  painted  his  impressions,  and  these  were  largely 
coloured  by  thoughts  on  the  fates  and  fortimes  of 
men  and  states. 

Sir  Edward  Cook's  last  essay,  on  The  Second 
Thoughts  of  Poets,  is  also  his  longest  and  most  am- 
bitious. It  shows  more,  perhaps,  than  any  of  the  other 
papers  how  happy  has  been  his  reading,  how  discursive, 
how  deep  and  how  careful.  It  is  as  well  from  time 
to  time  that  some  one  should  remind  us  of  the  com- 
mentator's art,  and  it  is  even  better  that  we  should  be 
shown  how  poets  revise  the  first  draft  of  their  impres- 
sions :  "  Shelley's  manuscript  might  have  been  taken,'* 
says  Trelawny,  "  for  a  sketch  of  a  marsh  overgrown 
with  bulrushes,  and  the  blots  for  wild  ducks."  A 
study  of  poets'  second  thoughts  makes  us  realise  that 
some  of  their  happiest  phrases  were  not  "  inevitable  " 
inspirations,  but  were,  in  reality,  second  thoughts. 

Far  from  the  fiery  noon,  and  eve's  one  star, 

read  originally. 

Far  from  the  fiery  noon,  and  evening. 

And  on  the  bosom  of  the  deep 
The  smile  of  Heaven  lay 

was  first  printed 

And  on  the  woods  and  on  the  deep. 


SIR  EDWARD  COOK  295 

The  classic  instance  of  revision  is,  of  course,  The 
Ancient  Mariner,  which  was  re-written  in  three  ways  : 
Coleridge  altered  the  archaic  style :  he  omitted  some 
grisly  passages :  and  he  altered  several  things  to 
make  the  story  clearer : 

One  after  one,  by  the  homed  moon 

(Listen,  O  stranger,  to  me), 
Each  turned  his  face  with  a  ghastly  pang, 

And  cursed  me  with  his  e'e, 

becomes 

One  after  one,  by  the  star-dogg'd  moon. 

Too  quick  for  groan  or  sigh. 
Each  tum'd  his  face  with  a  ghastly  pang, 

And  cursed  me  with  his  eye, 

which  is  a  very  obvious  improvement  in  every  way, 
caused  by  the  necessity  of  having  to  change  "  e'e  " 
to  "  eye."  It  is  interesting  to  think  that  "  It  ate  the 
food  it  ne'er  had  eat "  originally  ran  "  The  Mariners 
gave  it  biscuit-worms "  I  and  that  "  a  thousand 
thousand  slimy  things  "  is  merely  a  declension  from 
"  a  million  million  slimy  things."  "  The  first  editions 
are  the  worst  editions,"  says  Tennyson,  and  it  cer- 
tainly did  his  verse  good  to  be  grossly  abused  in  the 
Quarterly,  for  it  checked  the  publication  of  any  fresh 
verse  by  the  poet  for  nearly  ten  years,  and  was 
not  Horace  "  the  wise  adviser  of  the  nine-years 
ponder 'd  lay  "  ?  At  any  rate,  Lockhart's  gross  attack 
made  Tennyson  alter  for  the  better  many  verses ; 
examples  are  given  from  Oenone  and  The  Lady  of 
Shalott  and  In  Memoriam,  which  are  well  worth 
comparing.  It  is  hard  to  imagine  that  there  could 
ever  have  been  lines  in  Fitzgerald's  Omar  Khayyam 
calling  for  revision,  but  there  is  no  question  that 
"  Alas,  that  spring  should  vanish  with  the  Rose  " 


296  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

is  much  improved  by  the  substitution  of  "  Yet  Ah  " 
for  "  Alas."  It  is  worth,  in  this  instance,  preserving 
all  the  editions,  for  many  valuable  stanzas  were 
ultimately  deleted.  "  Two  of  the  loveliest  of  modem 
poems  owe  much  of  their  perfection  to  second 
thoughts."  It  is  excellent  to  think  that  Sir  Edward 
Cook  selects  Love  in  the  Valley  as  worthy  of  the  epithet 
"  loveliest."  But  which  of  the  two  versions,  1851  or 
1878,  is  it  that  you  mean  when  you  think  of  it  ?  The 
later  version  has  the  greater  following,  but  Tennyson 
preferred  the  earlier.  Meredith  found  the  excellent 
swinging  cadence  in  a  song  by  George  Darley,  but 
the  1878  version  gives  instances  of  maturer  artistry 
in  the  very  first  lines. 

on  the  green- 
sward. 


Under  yonder  beech-tree 


(1851)  standing 
(1878)  single 


Couched  with  her  arms  behind  her  I/idt'on      ijp   [  head. 

A  comparison  of  two  famous  stanzas  makes  in- 
teresting study.     Here  is  the  1851  edition  : 

Shy  as  the  squirrel  and  wayward  as  the  swallow ; 
Swift  as  the  swallow  when  athwart  the  western  flood 
Circleting  the  surface  he  meets  his  mirrored  winglets, — 
Is  that  dear  one  in  her  maiden  hud. 
Shy  as  the  squirrel  whose  nest  is  in  the  pine-tops  ; 
Gentle — ah  !  that  she  were  as  jealous  as  the  dove  i 
Full  of  all  the  wildness  of  the  woodland  creatures, 
Happy  in  herself  is  the  maiden  that  I  love  ! 

But  good  as  this  is,  how  much  more  inevitably  right 
is  this,  of  1878  : 

Shy  as  the  squirrel  and  wayward  as  the  swallow, 
Swift  as  the  swallow  along  the  river's  light 
Circleting  the  surface  to  meet  his  mirrored  winglets, 
Fleeter  she  seems  in  her  stay  than  in  her  flight. 


SIR  EDWARD  COOK  297 

Shy  as  the  squirrel  that  leaps  among  the  pine-tops. 
Wayward  as  the  swallow  overhead  at  set  of  sun, 
She  whom  I  love  is  hard  to  catch  and  conquer, 
Hard,  but  O  the  glory  of  the  winning  were  she  won  ! 

*'  The  love  poem  of  1851,"  says  Sir  Edward  Cook, 
"  was  transformed  upon  revision  into  the  most 
beautiful  of  poems  and  lyrics  of  the  joy  of  earth." 

Compare  again  Rossetti's  early  version  of  TJie 
Blessed  Damozel  with  that  of  1870  and  after  : 

'  The  blessed  damozel  leaned  out 

From  the  gold  bar  of  Heaven  ; 
Her  blue  grave  eyes  were  deeper  much 
Than  a  deep  water,  even, 

is  not  comparable  with  : 

The  bless6d  damozel  leaned  out 
From  the  gold  bar  of  Heaven  ; 

Her  eyes  were  deeper  than  the  depth 
Of  waters  stilled  at  even. 

It  is  queer  to  think  that  Rossetti  thought  it  necessary 
to  cancel  two  such  beautiful  lines  as  : 

Fair  with  honourable  eyes, 
Lamps  of  a  pellucid  soul — 

because  Browning  afterwards  talked  of  "  lustrous  and 
pellucid  soul  "  in  The  Ring  and  tlie  Book,  and  he  feared 
the  charge  of  plagiarism.  "  This  instance,"  says 
Sir  Edward  Cook,  "  should  be  a  warning  to  critics 
who,  in  all  ages,  have  been  over-fond  of  seasoning 
their  discovery  of  parallel  passages  with  suspicion  of 
plagiarism." 

Matthew  Arnold  made  a  very  happy  alteration  in 
The  Scholar  Gipsy  when  he  changed  "  Pluck'd  in  shy 
fields  and  distant  woodland  bowers "  to  "  Pluck'd 
in  shy  fields  and  distant  Wychwood  bowers."     This 


298  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

alteration  may  serve  as  the  poet's  answer  in  advance 
to  one  of  the  most  perverse  criticisms  ever  made  by  a 
man  of  taste.  Dr  Garnett  thought  that,  though  the 
charm  of  Arnold's  pieces  may  be  "  enhanced  for 
Oxonians,"  yet  "  the  nimaerous  local  allusions  which 
endear  the  poem  to  those  familiar  with  the  scenery, 
simply  worry  when  not  understood,"  to  which  Pro- 
fessor Saintsbury  has  retorted  :  "  One  may  not  be  an 
Athenian,  and  yet  be  able  to  enjoy  the  local  colour  of 
the  Phaedrits." 

Keats  vastly  improved  a  famous  ode  by  substituting 
"  magic "  for  "  the  wide,"  and  "  perilous "  for 
"  keelless  "  in  the  following  lines  : 

The  same  that  oft-times  hath 

Charm'd  the  wide  casements,  opening  on  the  foam 

Of  keelless  seas,  in  faery  lands  forlorn  : 

Was  it  his  own  unhappy  passion  that  induced  him  to 
change 

O  what  can  ail  thee,  knight-at-arms, 
to 

O  what  can  ail  thee,  wretched  wight  ? 

Hi^  second  thoughts  were  not  always  the  better, 
though  his  final  revision  of  his  sonnet  To  Sleep  is 
infinitely  fioier  than  the  earlier  versions. 

"  I  have  never  made,"  says  Sir  Edward  Cook, 
"  a  close  study  of  Wordsworth's  own  second  thoughts  : 
but  such  as  I  have  chanced  to  note  are  seldom  im- 
provements. After  all,  Wordsworth  is  of  all  great 
poets  the  most  unequal,  and  his  happiest  things  came 
by  grace  and  not  by  reflection." 

"  Beauty  and  truth,"  he  concludes,  "  may  come 
together  and  find  the  exactly  right  words  in  the  flash 
of  a  moment,  or  after  many  attempts  :  yet  Tenny- 
son's saying  should  be  remembered  :     '  Perfection 


SIR  EDWARD  COOK  299 

in  art  is,  perhaps,  more  sudden  sometimes  than  we 
think,  but  then  the  long  preparation  for  it,  that  unseen 
germination,  that  is  what  we  ignore  and  forget.' 
Wordsworth  wrote  best  when  he  revised  least  .  .  . 
one  thing  alone  is  certain — that  poetry  is  an  art,  and 
that  art  is  long." 


VII 

SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

MR  GERALD  CUMBERLAND  seems  to  have 
set  out  with  the  idea  of  treating  the  living 
as  Mr  Lytton  Strachey  in  Eminent  Victorians 
set  out  to  treat  the  dead.  That  is  to  say,  he  seeks  to 
earn  some  notoriety  as  an  otherwise  unknown  man 
by  lampooning  his  betters.  But  there  is  a  marked 
divergence  between  the  two  men.  Mr  Strachey  is 
pre-eminently  the  eclectic,  the  fastidious  scholar, 
well-read,  magnificently  equipped  with  the  historic 
sense,  with  an  exact  knowledge  of  what  is  grain  and 
what  is  chaff,  able  to  sift  and  weigh  evidence,  almost  a 
genius  at  discarding  irrelevancies  and  retaining  minute 
features  which  illuminate  and  bring  into  prominence 
the  side  of  the  character  he  wishes  to  revivify.  Mr 
Cumberland  is  just  a  precocious  schoolboy  indulging 
in  scandalous  chatter  :  fascinating  us  with  saucy  tit- 
bits cleverly  retold,  but,  nevertheless,  just  a  witty 
schoolboy  cheeking  his  masters  when  he  ought  to  be 
getting  on  with  his  work. 

It  is  significant  that  he  begins  with  Shaw,  himself  a 
master  craftsman  in  the  same  school.  He  says 
nothing  about  him  that  is  worth  putting  on  to  paper  ; 
in  fact,  twenty-seven  pages  of  twaddle  have  to  be 
waded  through  before  we  arrive  at  any  statement 
which  could  possibly  mean  anything  more  than  the 
paragraphs  in  Society  Snippets.  Then  we  find  some- 
thing definite  about  .  .  .  Lloyd  George  of  all  men  I 

"  He  has  a  wonderful  gift  of  making  you  feel  that 

300 


SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE  801 

he  thinks  you  are  the  most  interesting  and  most 
intelhgent  person  he  has  ever  met."  I  rather  imagine 
that  somebody's  leg  was  being  pulled  when  Mr 
Cumberland  called  on  Lloyd  George,  and  it  was  not 
the  Prime  Minister's.  Anyway,  why  Set  Down  in 
Malice  ?  Perhaps  Mr  Cumberland  aspires  to  an 
O.B.E.  Doctor  Walford  Davies  is  (forsooth)  to  be 
judged  by  his  stock  of  adjectives  in  an  after-dinner 
speech,  which  included  "  pernicious,"  "  poisonous," 
"  naughty,"  "  unlicensed,"  and  "  immoral."  Frank 
Harris  has  a  whole  chapter  to  himself,  and  is  enthusi- 
astically praised :  no  malice  here,  only  a  vague 
impression  of  a  great  genius,  greatly  generous,  a 
lover  of  delicacies  "  from  whom  no  gastronomic 
secrets  were  hid."  There  is  a  grotesque  picture  of 
Stanley  Houghton,  after  closing  his  ledgers,  jumping 
gynmastically  on  to  a  passing  tram  every  night, 
bound  for  Alexandra  Park.  After  a  hurried  meal, 
out  with  the  MSS.,  the  notebooks,  the  typescript,  and 
to  work  !  And  how  hard  he  did  work !  "  He  was 
hard ;  he  was  unimaginative ;  he  was  unromantic. 
But  he  was  extraordinarily  apt,  and  he  had  a  neat  and 
tidy  brain.  .  .  .  He  was  not  modest,  and  he  could  not 
feign  modesty.  His  vanity  was  neither  charming 
nor  aggressive ;  it  was  cold  and  distant,  without 
geniality,  without  humour.  .  .  .  He  had  no  genius : 
there  was  not  a  trace  of  magic  in  him  :  he  was  merely 
extraordinarily  clever,  closely  observant  and  possessed 
of  an  instinctive  sense  of  form  and  of  literary  values." 
One  remark  in  an  interview  Mr  Cumberland  had 
with  Houghton  sticks  in  my  brain  :  it  is  a  good 
illustration  of  his  critical  ability :  "  Only  G.  H.  Mair, 
Willie  Yeats  and  high-school  girls  think  Synge 
great,  Houghton." 

It  is  not  until  page  69  that  Mr  Cumberland  really 


802  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WAITERS 

wakes  up,  but  Arnold  Bennett  rouses  him  to  active 
irony. 

"  Bennett  was  rather  short,  thin,  hollow-eyed, 
prominent-toothed.  He  wore  a  white  waistcoat  and  a 
billycock  hat  very  much  awry,  and  he  had  a  manner 
of  complete  self-assurance.  .  .  . 

"  '  I  notice,'  said  I,  '  that  you  continue  writing  for 
The  New  Age  in  spite  of  their  violent  attacks  on 
you." 

"  *  Yes,'  he  answered  laconically,  and  he  looked 
dizzily  over  my  left  shoulder."  The  account  of  the 
breakfast  given  in  Manchester  by  G.  H.  Mair  to  Arnold 
Bennett  and  Houghton  is  very  well  told  :  the  whole 
hour  was  spent  in  a  tedious  and  protracted  discussion 
about  a  cabman,  a  very  large  trunk,  and  strangulated 
hernia.  *'  A  great  writer,"  concludes  Mr  Cimiberland  : 
"  no  doubt,  a  very  great  writer  :  but  you  might  gaze 
at  him  across  a  railway  carriage  for  hours  at  a  time 
and  never  suspect  it." 

There  is  a  delightful  story  of  G.  K.  Chesterton 
emerging  from  Shoe  Lane,  hurrying  into  the  middle 
of  Fleet  Street,  and  abruptly  coming  to  a  stand- 
still in  the  centre  of  the  traffic.  "  He  stood 
there  for  some  time,  wrapped  in  thought,  while 
buses,  taxis  and  lorries  eddied  a]x)ut  him  in  a  whirl- 
pool and  while  drivers  exercised  to  the  full  their  art 
of  expostulation.  Having  come  to  the  end  of  his 
meditations  he  held  up  his  hand,  turned  round, 
cleared  a  passage  through  the  horses  and  vehicles 
and  returned  up  Shoe  Lane."  When  Mr  Cimiberland 
lies,  he  lies  like  Falstaff,  for  which  I  love  him.  Of 
Masefield,  too,  he  has  something  interesting  to  tell  us. 
"  He  has  an  invincible  picturesqueness  :  he  is  tall, 
straight,  and  blue-eyed,  with  a  complexion  as  clear 
as  a  child's.    His  eyes  are   amazingly  shy,  almost 


SET  DOWN  IN   MALICE  808 

furtive.  His  manner  is  also  shy  ...  He  speaks  to 
you  as  though  he  suspected  you  of  hostility,  as 
though  you  had  the  power  to  injure  him  and  were  on 
the  point  of  using  that  power.  You  feel  his  sensi- 
tiveness and  you  admire  the  dignity  that  is  at  once 
its  outcome  and  its  protection.  .  .  .  His  mind  is  cast 
in  a  tragic  mould,  and  his  soul  takes  delight  in  the 
contemplation  of  physical  violence.  ...  I  believe  he 
is  intensely  morbid,  delighting  to  brood  over  dark 
things,  seeing  no  humour  in  life,  but  full  of  a  baffled 
chivalry,  a  nobility  thwarted  at  every  turn." 

It  is  pleasing  to  think  that  A.  A.  Milne,  whose 
judgment  in  these  things  most  of  us  respect  im- 
mensely, did  not  find  Mr  Cumberland  at  all  to  his 
liking.  It  is  amusing  to  hear  that  Mr  Cumberland 
considers  his  own  English  prose  style  more  correct, 
more  lucid,  and  more  distinguished  than  that  of 
Newman  in  the  Apologia. 

On  the  subject  of  "  Intellectual  Freaks "  he  is 
quite  worth  reading  :  he  starts  by  making  fun  of 
certain  members  of  the  Theosophical  Society :  "  they 
were  cultured  without  being  educated,  credulous  but 
without  faith,  bookish  but  without  learning,  argu- 
mentative but  without  logic.  The  women,  serene  and 
grave,  swam  about  in  drawing-rooms,  or  they  would 
stand  in  long,  attitudinising  ecstasies,  their  skimpy 
necks  emerging  from  strange  gowns,  their  bodies  as 
shoulderless  as  hock  bottles."  These  ladies  talk  like 
the  Duke  in  G.  K.  Chesterton's  Magic. 

He  is  equally  contemptuous  of  "  the  vast  throng  of 
people  who  arise  at  eight  or  thereabouts,  go  to  the 
City  every  morning,  work  all  day,  and  return  home  at 
dusk ;  who  perform  this  routine  every  day,  and  every 
day  of  every  year  ;  who  do  it  all  their  Uves ;  who  do 
it  without  resentment,  without  anger,  without  even  a 


804         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

momentary  impulse  to  break  away  from  their  sur- 
roundings. 

"  All  these  people  are  freaks  of  the  wildest  descrip- 
tion :  yet  they  imagine  themselves  to  be  the  backbone 
of  the  Empire.     Perhaps  they  are.  .  .  . 

"  I  know  a  man  still  in  his  '  twenties '  who  keeps 
hens  for  what  he  calls  '  a  hobby.'  Among  his  hens 
he  finds  all  the  excitement  his  soul  needs.  ...  I 
should  esteem  this  man  if  he  kicked  against  his 
destiny ;  but  he  loved  it,  until  the  Army  conscripted 
him.    God  save  the  world  from  those  who  keep  hens." 

When  he  comes  to  enlighten  us  on  Fleet  Street, 
Mr  Cumberland  has  some  shrewd  comments  to  make 
on  journalism,  as  for  instance  :  "  If  an  editor  is  in 
want  of  a  dramatic  critic,  a  musical  critic,  or  leader 
writer,  or  a  descriptive  reporter,  he  never  advertises  for 
one.  He  always  knows  some  one  who  knows  somebody 
else  who  is  just  the  man  for  the  job."  On  the  other 
hand,  we  learn  that  "  money-making  in  Fleet  Street  up 
to  about  seven  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  a  year  is  the 
easiest  thing  in  the  world  for  a  man  who  has  any  talent 
at  all  for  writing,  especially  if  that  talent  be  combined 
with  versatility  ...  if  you  have  proved  yourself  by 
inducing  a  number  of  editors  of  repute  to  take  your 
stuff,  go  in  and  win."  On  the  other  hand,  "  no  man 
by  taking  thought  can  add  a  thousand  pounds  a 
year  to  his  income,  for  money  is  not  made  by  thought 
but  by  intuition." 

Of  Orage,  for  whom  he  has  a  profound  admiration 
and  certainly  no  maUcious  word,  he  writes  :  "  he  has 
the  all-seeing,  non-rejecting  eyes  of  a  child.  He  has 
also  the  eternal  spirit  of  youth."  His  paper,  The 
New  Age,  "  reverences  neither  power  nor  reputation  ; 
it  is  subtle  and  unsparing ;  and  if  it  is  sometimes  cruel, 
it  is  cruel  with  a  purpose."    Famous  men  write  for  it 


SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE  305 

because  "  they  can  tell  the  unadulterated  truth  and 
because  they  are  proud  to  see  theu*  work  in  that 
paper." 

Coming  as  he  does  from  Manchester,  one  would 
expect  Mr  Cumberland  to  be  interested  in  music,  and 
the  truth  is  that  the  major  portion  of  his  book  is 
filled  with  gossip  about  musical  people  because  he  was 
himself  primarily  a  musical  critic. 

"  I  would  rather,"  he  writes,  "  be  a  musical  critic 
on  £150  a  year  than  a  stockbroker  earning  £1500." 

It  is  only  natural  that  he  should  rate  Ernest  New- 
man highest  among  his  fellow-craftsmen. 

"  Here  we  have  a  first-rate  intellect  functioning 
with  absolute  sureness  and  with  almost  fierce  rapidity. 
As  a  scholar,  no  man  is  better  equipped  ;  as  a  writer, 
he  ranks  with  the  highest :  for  fearlessness  and  in- 
flexible intellectual  honesty,  he  has  no  equal.  .  .  . 
He  is  highly  strung,  imaginative,  rationalistic  ;  he 
believes  little  and  trusts  not  at  all,  loves  intensely 
and  hates  bitterly." 

His  estimate  of  Manchester  and  Mancunian  people 
is  trite  and  dull :  he  wakes  up  again,  however,  in  his 
description  of  Chelsea  and  Augustus  John,  for  which 
and  for  whom  he  has  praise. 

"  The  essential  thing  about  Augustus  John  is  the 
quiet,  lazy  exterior  which,  in  some  peculiar  way,  con- 
trives to  suggest  hidden  fires  and  volcanic  energies.  .  .  . 
He  has  the  mystery  of  Leonardo.  One  feels  that  his 
personality  hides  a  great  and  important  secret,  but 
one  feels  also  that  that  secret  will  remain  hidden  for 
ever.  Sombre  he  is,  sombre  yet  vital,  sombre  and 
full  of  humour." 

"  Chelsea  men  and  women,"  we  read,  "  are  keen- 
witted, level-headed,  and  experienced  people  of  the 
world." 

u 


306         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

He  is  rude  about  Mr  Henderson's  face,  patronising 
on  the  subject  of  Lord  Derby,  and  thinks  EHzabeth 
Robins  the  greatest  of  living  British  female  writers  : 
"  her  temperament  is  not  dissimilar  to  Charlotte 
Bronte's,  that  great  little  woman  whose  sense  of  the 
ridiculous  was  so  great  but  whose  power  of  expressing 
it  was  so  small." 

One  of  the  rare  occasions  in  the  book  when  Mr 
Cumberland  is  bearable  (on  a  first  reading  he  charms 
by  his  freshness,  his  cheek,  and  his  courage  ;  a  second 
and  further  readings  show  him  as  striving  for  effect 
at  any  cost :  he  does  not,  as  I  expected,  so  much 
irritate  one  as  fill  one  with  depression  and  boredom), 
but  as  I  was  saying,  one  of  the  rare  occasions  when  he 
actually  pleases  is  the  time  when  he  talks  of  Pachmann. 
I  like  the  hyperbole  in  this  appreciation  :  none  but  a 
Manchester  man  would  have  indulged  in  it :  but  the 
Manchester  Guardian  correspondent  would  have 
quoted  Aristotle  and  spoken  above  our  heads,  using 
archaic  words  and  new-coined  phrases :  not  so, 
Mr  Cumberland  ;  he  is  nothing  if  not  plain-spoken  : 
nothing  if  not  extravagant :  .  .  . 

"  Cities  have  been  sacked  and  coimtries  ravaged  ; 
Babylon,  Nineveh,  Athens,  and  Rome  have  bloomed 
flauntingly  and  wilted  most  tragically  :  and  the  most 
exquisite  thing  that  has  been  produced  by  all  this 
suffering,  all  this  unimaginable  labour,  is  the  Chopin- 
playing  of  de  Pachmann.  The  world  has  toiled  for 
thousands  of  years  and  has  at  last  given  us  this  thing, 
more  delicate  than  lace,  more  brittle  than  porcelain, 
more  shining  than  gold.  ..."  This  is  not  criticism, 
but  it  makes  one  begin  to  think  that  Mr  Cumberland 
must  have  been  almost  hirnian  when  he  wrote  it, 
as  he  certainly  was  when  he  wrote  :  "  In  listening  to 
noble  music,  I  invariably  feel  much  greater  than, 


SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE  307 

and  curiously  irritated  by,  the  presence  of  other 
people."  I  also  feel  drawn  to  a  man  who  talks  of 
organists  having  as  much  imagination  as  the  vox 
humana  stop. 

On  theatrical  people  he  is  unconvincing  :  one  hears 
something  about  Beerbohm  Tree's  memory,  Henry 
Arthur  Jones's  self-importance,  Temple  Thurston's 
sensitiveness,  Gerald  Cumberland's  slavish  devotion 
to  Janet  Achurch,  and  Miss  Horniman's  detestation 
of  Romance  and  Mancunian  hardness,  but  there  are 
no  brilliant  thumb-nail  sketches  of  actors  and  actresses 
whom  we  have  learnt  tO  love  or  hate.  On  the  other 
hand,  I  did  not  realise  before  how  much  music  is 
regarded  in  Berlin  as  a  trade.  "  A  musician  does  not  go 
to  Berlin  to  get  money  :  he  goes  to  get  a  reputation." 
Unless  you  were  known  in  Berlin,  you  were  everywhere 
considered  a  second-rate  kind  of  person,  a  mere 
talented  outsider.  Few  artists  have  gone  to  sing  or 
play  in  Berlin  except  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining 
favourable  Press  Notices.  It  may  cost  a  couple  of 
hundred  pounds,  but  it  is  counted  money  well  spent, 
well  invested.  The  story  of  the  concert-agent  who 
required  £325  to  provide  hall,  printing,  advertisements, 
invitations,  preliminary  paragraphs,  audience,  critics' 
articles,  and  so  on  is  probably  like  most  of  the  rest 
of  the  book,  pure  or  impure  fabrication,  but  is  de- 
lightful. 

After  much  that  is  irrelevant  about  Grieg,  whom  he 
calls  "  Griegkin,"  Richter,  "  the  great  disciplinarian  ", 
the  "  polished,  emotional  "  Landon  Ronald,  and  other 
musicians,  he  picks  out  two  names  as  of  vital  import- 
ance in  British  creative  music — Sir  Edward  Elgar  and 
Granville  Bantock :  Elgar,  "  conservative,  soured 
with  the  aristocratic  point  of  view,  super-refined, 
deeply  religious ;    Bantock,  democratic,  Rabelaisian, 


808  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

free-tliinking,  gorgeously  human."  Of  the  two  it  is 
obvious  that  he  prefers  the  latter.  Among  the  people 
whom  Mr  Cumberland  would  like  to  meet  (a  quite 
neat  idea,  well  worked  out),  W.  B.  Yeats  is  given 
pride  of  place  on  account  of  his  "  lack-lust  "  nature  : 
He  wants  to  satisfy  himself  as  to  what  precisely  is 
wanting  in  this  lily-fingered,  effeminate  poet.  These 
are  not  exactly  his  words.  The  versatility  of  Hilaire 
Belloc  also  attracts  him  :  • "  Even  now,  on  the  border- 
land of  middle  age,  I  cannot  pick  up  a  new  book  of 
Belloc's  without  a  little  thrill :  he  is  so  clean,  so 
bravely  prejudiced,  so  courageous.  He  is  a  lover  of 
wine  and  beer,  of  literature,  of  the  Sussex  Downs, 
of  the  great  small  things  of  life  :  a  mystic,  a  man  of 
affairs,  a  poet.  What,  indeed,  is  he  not  that  is  fine 
and  noble  and  free  ?  " 

It  is  when  he  writes  like  this  that  all  our  prejudice 
against  G^erald  Cumberland  suddenly  vanishes  :  the 
only  true  criticism,  said  some  one,  is  that  which 
appreciates  :  it  seems  as  if  this  man  might  have  been 
a  true  critic,  but  has  misunderstood  or  ignored  this 
axiom,  and  so  queered  his  pitch.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  are  times  when  it  is  necessary  for  the  critic  to 
speak  plainly,  and  no  one  is  so  well  fitted  to  say  what 
we  all  feel  about  D.  H.  Lawrence  as  Cumberland. 
Lawrence  is  one  of  the  men  he  would  like  to  meet  for 
reasons  which  he  does  not  state  :  but  he  does  realise 
that  here  was  a  genius  who  in  Sons  and  Lovers  and 
The  White  Peacock  (which  Mr  Cumberland,  in  his 
perversity,  calls  Th^  Red  Peacock)  gave  the  world 
something  entirely  new.  He  could  so  easily  have  been 
the  leading  novelist  of  the  day  :  instead,  he  allowed 
himself  to  be  overwhelmed  by  the  passion  of  sex,  and 
then  ran  away  out  of  the  ugly  chaos  we  call  life  : 
there  was  no  riband  of  silver  in  his  case  :  it  was  just 


SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE  309 

sheer  funk  ...  we  feel  the  same  sort  of  sense  of  loss 
that  we  felt  when  Richard  Middleton  and  John 
Davidson  killed  themselves.  These  things  are  not 
done. 

For  some  rather  obscure  reason  there  is  a  good  deal 
of  talk  about  night  clubs  in  this  book,  but  as  it  all 
leads  up  to  an  exceedingly  cunning  suggestion  about 
their  reconstruction  much  dull  description  may  be 
forgiven.  I,  for  one,  am  quite  willing  to  subscribe  to 
Mr  Cumberland's  establishment  if  it  comes  up  to  his 
vision  : 

"  A  night  club  is  never  for  the  old.  There  should  be 
no  card-playing.  Dancing  one  would  have,  of  course, 
and  music  of  the  best.  And  wine,  and  many  pretty 
women,  and  a  perfume  of  roses  .  .  .  and  above  all, 
a  big  room  set  apart  for  the  hour  that  comes  after 
dawn.  At  dawn  we  would  all  go  into  another  room, 
a  room  coloured  green,  with  narcissi  and  jonquils  and 
hyacinths  on  the  tables  :  a  room  with  open  windows  : 
a  room  with  fruit  spread  invitingly  :  a  room  where 
one  could  still  be  gay  and  in  which  one  need  not  feel 
sordid  and  spiritually  jaded  and  spiritually  unclean." 

Set  Down  in  Malice  is  altogether  a  most  curious 
book.  It  certainly  satisfies  a  craving  that  we  all 
feel  to  know  something  about  our  more  famous 
contemporaries,  but  I  cannot,  for  the  life  of  me, 
think  why  he  should  search  for  something  nasty  to 
say  about  most  of  them.  It  is  as  false  a  method  as 
that  of  the  headmaster's  testimonial  to  his  assistants 
when  he  wants  to  get  rid  of  them  :  to  be  fulsome  in 
eulogy  iscertainly  no  worse  j  except  that  it  is  commoner, 
than  to  be  blatant  in  one's  rudeness.  Mr  Cumberland 
has  certainly  met  some  most  interesting  people,  but  it 
is  doubtful  whether  any  of  them  will  ever  speak  to 
him  again  :  he  seems  to  have  wantonly  infringed  one  of 


310  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

the  severest  unwritten  laws  of  society  :  he  has  broken 
the  confidence  which  was  not  asked.  In  his  endeavour 
to  achieve  perfect  honesty  he  has  tried  to  evade 
another  natural  law  which  cannot  lightly  be  broken, 
that  of  compromise,  and  has  succeeded  in  giving  us  a 
false  and  quite  dishonest  portrait.  He  is  like  popular 
caricaturists  who  emphasise  Lord  Northcliffe's  hair 
and  G.  K.  Chesterton's  embonpoint.  Even  Lytton 
Strachey  did  not  stop  at  Manning's  "  Hat." 

No.  Gerald  Cumberland's  book  ought  to  have 
been  worth  a  place  on  one's  permanent  bookshelf,  but 
isn't.  In  a  year  it  will  be  as  dead  as  this  week's 
Bystander. 


VIII 
THE  HUMOUR  OF  "SAKI" 

Reginald 

Reginald  in  Russia 
The  Chronicles  of  Clouts 
The  Unbearable  Bassington 
When  William  Came 
Beasts  and  Super-Beasts 
The  Toys  of  Peace 

IT  was  in  the  Christmas  vacation  of  1905  that  I 
was  presented  with  a  copy  of  Reginald  by  a  fellow- 
undergraduate.  There  are  some  debts  that  one 
can  never  repay  in  full ;  it  is  perhaps  something 
that  we  never  forget  the  friend  who  introduces  us  to 
an  author  who  ultimately  becomes  a  favourite :  I 
shall  feel  that  I  have,  in  some  degree,  repaid  him  in 
this  case  if  I  can  entice  any  reader  of  this  chapter  who 
may  have  missed  Munro's  work  to  love  it  as  I  do,  for 
he  who  brings  before  our  notice  what  exactly  suits 
our  temperament  is  a  private  benefactor  of  a  very 
high  order.  "  Saki's  "  humour — let  it  be  admitted 
at  once — is  not  for  all  tastes.  There  may  be  some 
who  look  upon  such  playing  upon  phrases  as  "  There 
are  occasions  when  Reginald  is  caviare  to  the  Colonel," 
or  "  We  live  in  a  series  of  rushes — like  the  infant 
Moses  " — as  unworthy.  These  are  they  who  refuse 
to  laugh  at  the  nimble-witted  Nelson  Keys,  and  prefer 
to  reserve  their  merriment  for  an  abstruse  Shake- 
spearean   pun    about     "  points  "    and    "  gaskins." 

3" 


812  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

Again,  it  may  be  urged  that  such  a  jest  as  the  following 
may  be  found  every  week  in  the  comic  papers : 

"  There  is  my  lady  kitten  at  home,  for  instance  : 
I've  called  it  Derry  :  then  if  there  are  any  unseemly 
noises  in  the  night,  they  can  be  explained  succinctly 
— ^Derry  and  Toms."  Whether  or  no  that  is  a  good 
joke  I  don't  profess  to  judge.  All  I  know  is  that  I 
have  remembered  it  for  nearly  fifteen  years,  and  I 
have  no  memory  whatever  for  stories  of  any  kind.  I 
am  not  ashamed  to  say  that  I  laugh  whenever  I  think 
of  it.  That  is  the  type  of  humour  that  exactly 
appeals  to  me.  How  we  laughed  too  over  the  deft, 
ironic  touches  that  we  afterwards  came  to  regard  as 
Mimro's  choicest  gift,  from  the  simple  "  Reginald 
considered  that  the  Duchess  had  much  to  learn  :  in 
particular,  not  to  hurry  out  of  the  Carlton  as  though 
afraid  of  losing  one's  last  bus,"  or  "  she  was  one  of 
those  people  who  regard  the  Church  of  England  with 
patronising  affection,  as  if  it  were  something  that 
had  grown  up  in  their  kitchen  gardens,"  to  the  crisper, 
unforgettable  "  never  be  a  pioneer  :  it's  the  Early 
Christian  that  gets  the  fattest  lion,"  "  the  frock  that's 
made  at  home  and  repented  at  leisure,"  "  the  stage 
can  never  be  as  artificial  as  life  ;  even  in  an  Ibsen 
drama  one  must  reveal  to  the  audience  things  that  one 
would  suppress  before  the  children  or  servants  "  ; 
"  in  a  few,  ill-chosen  words  she  told  the  cook  that  she 
drank  :  the  cook  was  a  good  cook,  as  cooks  go  ;  and 
as  cooks  go,  she  went  "  ^ :  "c'e^f  le  premier  pa  qui 
compter  as  the  cookoo  said  when  it  swallowed  its 
foster-parent,"  "  a  young  man  whom  one  knew 
instinctively  had  a  good  mother  and  an  indifferent 
tailor — ^the  sort  of  young  man  who  talks  unflaggingly 

^  This  has  now  received  the  supreme  honour  of  being  introduced  into 
a  revue  as  an  original  joke  1 


THE  HUMOUR  OF  "  SAKI  "  813 

through  the  thickest  soup,  and  smooths  his  hair, 
dubiously  as  though  he  thought  it  might  hit  back  " 
.  .  .  and  so  on.  I  am  tempted  to  go  on  quoting,  as 
we  used  to  in  those  far-off  days  of  youth  .  .  .  but 
with  me,  at  any  rate,  Reginald  has  stood  the  test  of 
time.  I  read  it  to-day  with  just  as  many  involuntary 
guffaws  of  mirth  as  I  used  to  :  it  is  no  book  for  the 
railway  carriage,  if  you  are  constituted  as  I  am. 

The  sketch  of  Reginald,  who  is  forced  to  spend 
Christmas  at  an  intolerably  dull  house,  planning 
some  diversion  (a  favourite  trick  of  Munro's),  is  almost 
a  test  example. 

"  I  had  been  preceded  [to  bed]  a  few  minutes 
earlier  by  Miss  Langshan-Smith,  a  rather  formidable 
lady,  who  always  got  up  at  some  uncomfortable  hour 
in  the  morning,  and  gave  you  the  impression  that  she 
had  been  in  communication  with  most  of  the  European 
Governments  before  breakfast.  There  was  a  paper 
pinned  on  her  door  with  a  signed  request  that  she 
might  be  called  particularly  early  on  the  morrow. 
Such  an  opportunity  does  not  come  twice  in  a  life- 
time. I  covered  up  everything  except  the  signature 
with  another  notice,  to  the  effect  that  before  these 
words  should  meet  the  eye  she  would  have  ended  a 
misspent  life,  was  sorry  for  the  trouble  she  was  giving, 
and  would  like  a  military  funeral.  A  few  minutes 
later  I  violently  exploded  an  air-filled  paper-bag  on 
the  landing,  and  gave  a  stage  moan  that  could  have 
been  heard  in  the  cellars.  Then  I  went  to  bed.  The 
noise  those  people  made  in  forcing  open  the  good 
lady's  door  was  positively  indecorous  ;  she  resisted 
gallantly,  but  I  believe  they  searched  her  for  bullets 
for  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  as  if  she  had  been  an 
historic  battlefield." 

I  find  it  impossible  to  copy  that  story  down  without 


814  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

laughing  ;  to  me,  at  any  rate,  it  is  irresistibly  fuiiny, 
and  it  is  in  Munro's  peculiar  vein  :  he  is  better  at  this 
practical-joke  sort  of  fun  than  any  man  I  know  : 
you  may  legitimately  urge  that  such  a  sense  of  humour 
connotes  cruelty,  and  "  Saki  "  seems  to  me  to  be, 
on  occasion,  one  of  the  "  hardest  "  writers  I  know. 

After  all,  so  far  as  I  imderstand  him,  he  sets  out 
to  scourge  the  foibles  of  Society :  he  is  a  sort  of  prose 
Pope  :  at  times  he  is  just  as  polished  and  his  arrows 
are  quite  as  well-barbed.  "  He  died  quite  abruptly 
while  watching  a  county  cricket  match  :  two  and  a 
half  inches  of  rain  had  fallen  for  seven  runs,  and  it 
was  supposed  that  the  excitement  killed  him." 
"  Isn't  there  a  bishop  who  believes  that  we  shall 
meet  all  the  animals  we  have  known  on  earth  in 
another  world  ?  How  frightfully  embarrassing  to 
meet  a  whole  shoal  of  whitebait  you  had  last  known  at 
Prince's  !  I'm  sure,  in  my  nervousness,  I  should  talk 
of  nothing  about  lemons."  "  Whether  the  story  about 
the  go-cart  can  be  turned  loose  in  the  drawing-room, 
or  must  be  told  privately  to  each  member  of  the  party, 
for  fear  of  shocking  public  opinion."  "  She  must  have 
been  very  strictly  brought  up,  she's  so  desperately 
anxious  to  do  the  wrong  thing  correctly.  Not  that 
it  really  matters  nowadays,  as  I  told  her  :  I  know 
some  perfectly  virtuous  people  who  are  received 
everywhere."  "  There's  Marian  Mulciber,  who  would 
think  she  could  play  bridge,  now  she's  gone  into  a 
Sisterhood — lost  all  she  had,  you  know,  and  gave  the 
rest  to  Heaven."  As  you  may,  by  this  time,  have 
gathered,  Reginald  is  one  of  those  flippant  young 
men  about  town  (not  very  common)  who  are  as  neat 
in  their  speech  as  they  are  in  their  clothes.  I  visualise 
Munro  as  very  like  his  own  Reginald  in  his  youth, 
sardonic  and  rude  at  garden  parties,  never  losing  an 


THE  HUMOUR  OF  "  SAKI  "  315 

opportunity  of  revenge  on  his  enemies,  conversa- 
tionally brilliant  in  a  way  that  unfortunately  reminds 
one  of  Wilde  at  very  rare  intervals  as  in  "  That  is  the 
worst  of  tragedy,  one  can't  hear  oneself  talk,"  and 
"  Beauty  is  only  sin  deep,"  but  he  escapes  from  the 
sterile  artificiality  of  the  Wilde  school  very  quickly, 
and  Wilde  never  could  have  hit  on  the  sort  of  humour 
one  finds  in  such  a  sentence  as  :  "  Never  be  flippantly 
rude  to  any  inoffensive,  grey-bearded  stranger  that 
you  may  meet  in  pine  forests  or  hotel  smoking-rooms 
on  the  Continent.  It  always  turns  out  to  be  the 
King  of  Sweden." 

Reginald  stage-managing  a  Sunday-school  treat  by 
depriving  the  choir-boys  of  their  clothes  and  com- 
pelling them  to  form  a  Bacchanalian  procession 
through  the  village  with  a  he-goat  and  tin-whistles, 
but  no  covering  beyond  a  few  spotted  handkerchiefs, 
provides  us  with  an  inexhaustible  theme  for  mirth ; 
Reginald  telling  tales  about  Miriam  Klopstock, 
"  who  would  take  her  Chow  with  her  to  the  bath-room, 
and  while  she  was  bathing  it  was  playing  at  she- 
bears  with  her  garments.  Miriam  was  always  late 
for  breakfast,  and  she  wasn't  really  missed  till  the 
middle  of  lunch "  ;  Reginald  refusing  to  accept 
invitations  from  a  sort  of  to-be-left-till-called-for 
cousin  of  his  father  on  the  ground  that  "  the  sins  of 
the  father  should  not  be  visited  by  the  children  "  ; 
Reginald  "  ragging "  the  Major  who  was  for  ever 
reminding  his  fellow-guests  of  things  that  he  had 
shot  in  Lapland,  "  continually  giving  us  details  of 
what  they  measured  from  tip  to  tip  as  though  he 
thought  we  were  going  to  make  them  warm  under- 
things  for  the  winter  "  ;  whatever  he  is  doing  he  is  a 
sheer  delight.  What  I  cannot  understand  is  why 
such  a  scintillating  book  should  have  so  far  failed  to 


816  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

attract  the  public  that  a  second  edition  was  not  called 
for  until  a  year  after  publication,  and  a  third  edition 
was  not  printed  until  six  years  had  passed.  To  me, 
this  little  book  of  118  pages  contains  the  cream  of  his 
work.  True,  it  contains  no  example  of  his  essays  in 
the  tragic  muse,  some  of  which  are  no  whit  inferior  to 
his  best  in  the  comic  vein,  but  in  Reginald  we  see  him 
at  his  most  ingenuous,  most  naive,  and  most  youthful. 
Before  considering  his  other  books  it  will  be  as  well 
to  give  such  facts  of  his  life  as  may  help  to  illustrate 
his  work.  He  was  bom  in  1870  in  Burmah,  the  son 
of  a  Colonel.  His  mother  died  yoimg,  so  he  was 
brought  up  by  two  maiden  aunts,  with  old-fashioned, 
Scottish  ideas  of  discipline,  who  lived  in  North  Devon, 
near  Barnstaple.  One  cannot  help  thinking  that 
Sredni  Vashtar^  by  far  his  most  powerful  story,  owes 
something  to  reminiscences  of  early  life.  He  knows 
nearly  as  much  about  children  as  Kenneth  Grahame 
and  Eric  Parker  know.  Like  all  boys  destined 
to  become  writers  he  read  widely :  he  was  devoted 
to  animals  and  nature,  as  might  be  expected  from  an 
impressionable  child  brought  up  in  such  exquisite 
surroundings.  In  spite  of  delicate  health,  he  was 
always  working  out  ingenious,  mischievous  schemes, 
as  is  only  too  evident  from  his  books.  He  must  have 
been  a  constant  thorn  in  the  side  of  his  aunts  and 
anyone  else  who,  for  the  moment,  was  responsible 
for  him.  On  the  return  of  his  father  he  accompanied 
him  to  Davos,  Normandy,  Dresden,  and  Austria : 
museums  and  picture  galleries  became  his  educators. 
Eventually  the  boy  joined  the  Burmese  Moimted 
Police,  but  loneliness,  combined  with  seven  attacks 
of  fever  in  eleven  months,  necessitated  his  return  to 
England.  He  then  came  to  London  and  plunged  into 
journalism  by  writing  political  satires  for  The  West- 


THE^HUMOUR  OF  "  SAKI  "  317 

minster  Gazette.  In  1902  he  went  to  the  Balkans  for 
The  Morning  Post,  and  during  the  Revolution  of  1905 
was  the  correspondent  of  that  paper  in  Petrograd. 

After  removal  to  Paris,  he  came  back  to  London  in 
1908,  to  find  that  a  brilliant  future  as  a  man  of  letters 
awaited  him.  He  lived  very  simply  in  lodgings  in 
Mortimer  Street,  and  refused  to  adapt  his  style  in 
order  to  appeal  to  wider  circles,  preferring  to  occupy 
a  permanent  niche  in  our  literature  which,  in  the 
opinion  of  many  good  judges  will  be  lasting,  rather 
than  make  an  ephemeral  reputation  and  probably 
much  money  by  prostituting  his  genius.  In  spite  of  his 
age,  he  managed  to  enlist  in  the  2nd  King  Edward's 
Horse  shortly  after  the  outbreak  of  war,  but  had  to 
exchange  into  the  22nd  Royal  Fusiliers  on  account 
of  his  health.  He  was  offered  a  commission  twice, 
but  refused,  just  as  he  refused  many  "  cushy  "  jobs 
that  were  offered  to  him.  He  fell  in  the  Beaumont- 
Hamel  action  in  November  1916. 

We  may  now  return  to  our  criticisms  of  his  other 
books.  Reginald  in  Russia,  as  so  often  happens  in 
the  case  of  sequels,  was  most  disappointing  and 
need  not  detain  us. 

The  Chronicles  of  Clovis  (1912)  is,  in  the  opinion  of 
most  of  his  admirers,  his  best  book.  It  is  certainly 
his  most  characteristic  work.  In  it  we  see  his  under- 
standing of  and  love  for  animals,  his  almost  inhuman 
aloofness  from  suffering,  his  first-hand  knowledge  of 
house-parties  and  hunting,  his  astounding  success  in 
choice  of  names  for  his  characters,  his  gift  for  epigram, 
his  love  of  practical  jokes,  his  power  of  creating  an 
atmosphere  of  pure  horror,  his  Dickensian  apprecia- 
tion of  food  and  the  importance  of  its  place  in  life, 
his  eerie  belief  in  rustic  superstitions,  and  his  never- 
failing  supply  of  bizarre  and  startling  plots. 


318         BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

Clovis  is,  of  course,  only  Reginald  re-christened  : 
he  supplies  the  epigrams  and  is  the  prime  instigator 
of  most  of  the  practical  jokes. 

For  originality  of  theme  it  would  be  hard  to  beat 
Tobermory,  the  story  of  the  cat  who  suddenly  assumed 
human  speech  at  a  house-party  and  began  to  regale  a 
drawing-room  full  of  guests  with  precise  extracts 
from  the  private  opinions  of  each  of  those  present 
about  the  others. 

** '  What  do  you  think  of  human  intelligence  ?  ' 
asked  Mavis  Pellington  lamely. 

"  '  Of  whose  intelligence  in  particular  ?  '  asked 
Tobermory  coldly. 

** '  Oh,  well,  mine,  for  instance,'  said  Mavis,  with  a 
feeble  laugh. 

"  '  You  put  me  in  an  embarrassing  position,"  said 
Tobermory.  '  When  your  inclusion  in  this  house- 
party  was  suggested,  Sir  Wilfred  protested  that  you 
were  the  most  brainless  woman  of  his  acquaintance, 
and  that  there  was  a  wide  distinction  between 
hospitality  and  the  care  of  the  feeble-minded.  Lady 
Blemley  replied  that  your  lack  of  brain-power  was 
the  precise  quality  which  had  earned  you  your  invi- 
tation, as  you  were  the  only  person  she  could  think  of 
who  might  be  idiotic  enough  to  buy  their  old  car. 
You  know,  the  one  they  call  "  The  Envy  of  Sisyphus," 
because  it  goes  quite  nicely  up-hill,  if  you  push  it.'  " 

Once  given  the  idea,  which  is  brilliant,  it  is  easy  to 
see  how,  in  the  hands  of  an  artist,  there  is  no  limit 
to  the  humour  to  be  derived  from  it.  It  is  like 
Gullivefs  Travels. 

There  is  a  simplicity  about  his  plots  that  makes 
one  gasp  at  their  effectiveness,  as  in  the  case  of  Lady 
Bastable,  in  whose  house  Clovis  did  not  wish  to  stay 
longer,  and  so  obtained  permission  to  leave  by  the 


THE  HUMOUR  OF  "  SAKI  "  319 

ruse  of  playing  on  Lady  Bastable's  weak  spot.  She 
was  always  in  dread  of  a  revolution  :  Clovis  only  had 
to  rush  into  the  servants'  quarters  and  shout :  "  Poor 
Lady  Bastable  !  Jn  the  morning-room  !  oh,  quick  !  " 
and  lead  the  butler,  cook,  page-boy,  three  maids,  and 
a  gardener  still  clutching  a  sickle,  rapidly  to  the  room 
where  she  was  seated  quietly  reading  the  paper,  to 
make  her  fly  through  the  French  windows  in  igno- 
minious retreat. 

The  Unrest  Cure  is  in  much  the  same  vein  :  Clovis, 
in  this  case,  manages  to  disturb  the  even  tenor  of 
the  existence  of  a  "  groovy  "  middle-aged  bachelor 
and  his  sister  by  a  "  fake  "  massacre  of  the  Jews  in 
their  neighbourhood.  The  plot,  as  usual,  is  ingenious 
and  convincing. 

But  the  story  that  stands  out  in  this  volume  is 
the  gruesome  Sredni  Vashtar,  which  tells  of  a  delicate 
small  boy  (living  under  the  strictest  surveillance  of  a 
religious  aunt),  who  managed  to  keep  a  Houdan  hen 
and  a  great  ferret  in  the  recesses  of  a  tool-shed 
unknown  to  his  tyrannical  overseer.  The  hen  was 
found  and  destroyed.  Other  gods  were  suspected, 
and  the  woman  made  a  personal  investigation  to 
discover  the  ferret  while  the  boy  prayed  for  vengeance, 
his  face  glued  to  the  window  which  overlooked  the 
garden  and  the  tool-shed.  After  an  interminable 
interval  he  saw  a  long,  low,  yellow-and-brown  beast 
emerge  with  dark  wet  stains  around  the  fur  of  jaws 
and  throat  .  .  .  and,  after  a  lull,  during  which  he 
happily  made  himself  some  toast,  he  heard  the  scared 
sobbings  and  the  shuffling  tread  of  those  who  bore  a 
heavy  burden  into  the  house.  The  atmosphere  is  as 
tense  and  awe-inspiring  as  it  is  in  Thrawn  Janet  or 
Markheim,  or  the  mysterious  tales  of  Richard  Middle- 
ton.     It  is  a  relief  to  come  down  to  the  antics  of 


820  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

Adrian  of  Bethnal  Green,  who  amused  himself  by 
transferring  the  bath-room  label  in  a  German  hotel 
to  the  adjoining  bedroom-door  belonging  to  Frau 
Hofrath  Schilling,  who,  from  seven  o'clock  in  the 
morning  onwards,  had  a  stream  of  involuntary 
visitors.  We  rise  to  the  purer  regions  of  irony  again 
in  The  Chaplet,  where  the  chef  of  a  famous  restaurant 
plunged  the  head  of  the  conductor  of  the  orchestra 
into  the  almost  boiling  contents  of  a  soup  tureen 
because  the  guests  had  allowed  his  consummate  dish 
of  Canetons  d  la  mode  d'Amblive  to  grow  cold  on  their 
plates  while  they  listened  to  the  strains  of  The  Chaplet. 

One  begins  to  think  that  advertising  agencies  must 
have  lost  a  gold  mine  by  the  death  of  "  Saki,"  after 
one  has  read  Filboid  Sludge,  the  story  of  the  penurious 
young  man  who  wanted  to  marry  the  daughter  of  a 
patent-food  seller.  Mark  Spayley,  the  prospective 
bridegroom,  steps  in  to  save  his  future  father-in-law 
from  ruin.  As  "  Pipenta  "  the  food  had  failed  to 
"  catch  on."  Spayley  re-christened  it  "  Filboid 
Studge,"  and  designed  one  huge,  sombre  poster 
depicting  the  damned  in  Hell  suffering  a  new  torment 
from  their  inability  to  get  at  the  Filboid  Studge, 
which  elegant  young  fiends  held  out  just  beyond 
their  reach.  The  scene  was  rendered  more  gruesome 
by  a  subtle  suggestion  of  the  features  of  the  leading 
men  and  women  of  the  day.  The  poster  bore  no 
fulsome  allusions  to  the  merits  of  the  new  breakfast 
food,  but  a  single  grim  statement  in  bold  letters 
along  its  base  :   "  They  cannot  buy  it  now." 

Spayley  had  grasped  the  fact  that  people  will  do 
things  from  a  sense  of  duty  which  they  would  never 
attempt  as  a  pleasure.  Needless  to  say,  he  loses 
the  wife  he  wants  owing  to  the  startling  success 
of  his  poster.     As  Clovis  said  :   "  After  all,  you  have 


THE  HUMOUR  OF  "  SAKI  "  821 

this  doubtful  consolation,  that  'tis  not  in  mortals  to 
countermand  success." 

From  The  Music  on  the  Hill  we  learn  that  "  Saki  " 
held  in  very  considerable  awe  the  power  of  the  great 
god  Pan  :  his  lonely  life  as  a  boy  in  North  Devon 
must  have  led  him  to  realise  that  the  forces  of  Nature 
are  relentless  and  terrible.  This  fact  must  have  been 
seared  into  his  heart,  for  he  recurs  to  it  again  and 
again.  The  doing  to  death  of  the  young  city -bred  wife 
by  the  hunted  stag  because  of  her  disbelief  in  the 
power  of  the  wood-gods  is  horribly  effective  in  its  irony. 
The  Peace  of  Mowsle  Barton  is  intended  to  prove  that 
London  may  very  well  be  more  restful  for  the  nerves 
than  the  depths  of  the  country,  where  old  women 
seem  to  have  retained  their  witchcraft  and  possess 
some  remnants  of  their  legendary  powers  of  magic 
and  cursing. 

The  Hounds  of  Fate  is  exactly  in  the  vein  of  Mase- 
field's  long  narrative  poems,  and  shows  the  slow, 
unchanging  steps  of  doom  tracking  down  the  miscreant 
who  thinks  to  escape  vengeance.  There  is  a  quite 
sufficient  sprinkling  of  the  terrible  in  this  book, 
which  is,  perhaps,  all  the  more  hair-raising  by  reason 
of  its  juxtaposition  with  the  light  and  airy  persiflage 
of  Clovis.  One  word  on  his  choice  of  names  :  a 
mere  catalogue  will  suffice  to  show  how  perfectly  they 
are  invented.  As  an  exercise  in  imagination,  I 
would  suggest  that  you  try  to  visualise  the  appear- 
ance and  characteristics  of  each,  and  then  compare 
your  results  with  the  reality.  In  every  case  you  will, 
I  think,  very  nearly  approximate  to  his  conception. 
I  will  begin  by  helping  you. 

Constance  Broddle  (a  strapping,  florid  girl  of  the 
kind  that  go  so  well  with  autumn  scenery  or  Christmas 
decorations  in  church). 

X 


822  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

The  Brimley  Bomefields  (depressed-looking  young 
women  who  have  the  air  of  people  who  have  bowed 
to  destiny  and  are  not  quite  sure  whether  the  salute 
will  be  returned). 

Septimus  Brope  (the  Editor  of  The  Cathedral 
Monthly). 

Groby  Lington  (a  good-natured  elderly  man  of 
recluse  habits  who  kept  a  pet  parrot). 

Now  try  a  few  for  yourself : 

Bertie  Van  Tahn,  Odo  Finsberry,  Agnes  Resker, 
Mrs  Riversedge,  Mrs  Packletide,  J.  P.  Huddle, 
Aristide  Saucourt,  Rose-Marie  Gilpet,  Duncan  Dul- 
lamy,  Betsy  Croot,  Mortimer  Seltoun,  Cocksley 
Coxon,  Loona  Bimberton,  Martin  Stonor. 

Which  is  the  witch,  the  unorthdox  Dean,  the  chef, 
the  old-fashioned  hostess,  the  man  who  was  reading 
for  Holy  Orders,  the  youth  who  was  so  depraved 
at  seventeen  that  he  had  long  given  up  trying  to 
be  any  worse,  the  Christian  Scientist,  the  Company 
Promoter,  the  solid,  sedate  man  who  discussed  the 
prevalence  of  measles  at  the  Rectory  ?  .  .  .  I  main- 
tain that  their  names  fit  them  so  exactly  that  you 
ought  to  be  able  to  "  spot  "  each  of  them  at  a  glance. 

I  do  not  propose  to  dwell  on  The  Unbearable  Bas- 
sington,  in  which  joy  and  pain  are  blended  so  inextric- 
ably that  we  find  ourselves  laughing  through  our  tears 
at  one  moment,  and  weeping  through  our  laughter 
the  next.  "  Said "  was  not  a  great  novelist,  even 
though  we  may  claim  that  When  William  Came  was 
a  magnificent  tour  de  force.  If  anything  could  have 
roused  England  to  the  menace  of  Prussian  militarism 
in  those  days  before  the  war  this  bitingly  ironic 
fantasy  should  have  succeeded ;  but  we  were  too  far 
sunken  in  our  torpor,  and  the  squib  fizzled  out.  As 
propaganda  this  novel  deserves  lasting  fame,  but  from 


THE  HUMOUR  OF  "  SAKI  "  323 

the  artistic  point  of  view  "  Saki's  "  reputation  will 
rest  solely  on  his  manipulation  of  the  short  story, 
in  which  branch  of  letters  he  was,  as  I  am  trying  to 
show,  a  past  master. 

In  Beasts  and  Super-Beasts  he  sometimes  excels 
even  the  most  witty  chapters  of  The  Chronicles  of 
Clovis  :  as  can  be  seen  from  the  title,  he  specialises  in 
animal  stories,  and  by  a  queer  trick  now  attributes  his 
more  effective  practical  jokes  to  the  inventive  genius 
of  sixteen-year-old  flappers  instead  of  to  young 
male  "  rips  "  of  the  Reginald-Clovis  type. 

His  choice  of  beasts  is  as  queer  as  his  choice  of 
names  :  they  bear  something  of  the  same  resemblance 
to  ordinary  animals  and  ordinary  names  as  Heath 
Robinson's  drawings  do  to  the  usual  machine  diagram. 
Just  as  Heath  Robinson  ridicules  absurd  inventions, 
so  does  "  Saki  "  burn  up  with  the  white  flame  of  his 
scorn  all  pretenders  to  occult  powers  :  the  man  whose 
aunt  averred  that  she  had  seen  him  actually  turn  a 
vegetable  marrow  into  a  wood-pigeon  before  her  very 
eyes  gets  a  very  thin  time  at  the  hands  of  Clovis, 
"  whom  he  would  gladly  have  transformed  into  a  cock- 
roach, and  stepped  on  had  he  been  given  the  chance." 
Munro  was  probably  all  the  more  bitter  against  the 
charlatan  because  of  his  own  belief  in  unaccountable 
phenomena  :  he  casts  a  wonderful  air  of  verisimilitude 
over  the  story  of  Laura,  who,  at  the  point  of  death, 
declares  that  she  is  coming  back  as  an  otter  to  worry 
her  friends,  and  does  so  :  having  been  hunted  and 
killed  in  that  capacity,  she  next  reappears  in  the  guise 
of  a  naked  brown  Nubian  boy,  intent  on  mischief  as 
ever. 

Even  the  hoaxes  in  this  book  seem  to  depend 
on  animals  :  there  is  the  story  of  how  the  flapper  kept 
the    parliamentary    candidate    from    brooding    over 


824  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

politics  at  night  by  committing  to  his  care  a  gamecock 
and  a  pig,  on  the  plea  that  the  outhouses  had  been 
flooded  owing  to  the  bursting  of  the  reservoir  :  there 
is  the  delicious  tale  of  the  man  in  the  train  who 
always  failed  to  capture  the  attention  of  any  of  his 
fellow-passengers  until,  at  the  instigation  of  a  friend, 
he  laimched  the  following  at  their  heads  :  "A  snake 
got  into  my  hen-run  yesterday  morning  and  killed 
six  out  of  seven  pullets,  first  mesmerising  them  with 
its  eyes,  and  then  biting  them  as  they  stood  helpless. 
The  seventh  pullet  was  one  of  that  French  sort, 
with  feathers  all  over  its  eyes,  so  it  escaped  the  mes- 
meric snare  and  just  flew  at  what  it  could  see  of  the 
snake  and  pecked  it  to  pieces."  From  that  day  his 
reputation  as  the  Munchausen  of  the  party  was 
assured.  The  story  of  the  tame  otter  that  had  a 
tank  in  the  garden  to  swim  in  and  whined  restlessly 
whenever  the  water-rate  was  overdue,  was  scarcely  an 
unfair  parody  of  some  of  his  wilder  efforts.  And 
then  came  Nemesis.  His  ^vife  followed  the  example 
of  her  mother  and  great-grand-aunt  by  dying  im- 
mediately after  making  a  "  Death's  Head  Patience  " 
work  out.  At  last  something  had  really  happened  in 
the  romancer's  life.  He  wrote  out  the  full  story  only 
to  find  that  he  was  disbelieved  in  every  quarter. 
"  Not  the  right  thing  to  be  Munchausening  in  a  time  of 
sorrow  "  was  the  general  verdict,  and  he  sank  once  more 
to  conversation  about  canaries,  beetroot,  and  potatoes, 
a  chastened  and  lonely  man. 

There  is  irony  enough  and  to  spare  in  the  story  of 
how  the  family  of  Harrowcluff  came  to  fiigure  in  the 
Honours'  List.  Basset,  at  the  age  of  thirty-one, 
had  returned  to  England  after  keeping  open  a  trade 
route,  quietening  a  province,  enforcing  respect  .  .  . 
aU  with  the  least  possible  expense.     He  was  likely 


THE  HUMOUR  OF  "  SAKI  "  325 

to  be  thought  much  of  in  Whitehall :  his  elder  half- 
brother,  liucas,  was  always  feverishly  engrossed  in  a 
medley  of  elaborate  futilities,  and  bored  him  sadly 
with  his  constant  discoveries  of  ideas  that  were 
"  simply  it."  On  this  occasion  the  inspiration  came 
to  Lucas  while  he  was  dressing.  "  It  will  be  the 
thing  in  the  next  music-hall  revue.  All  London  will 
go  mad  over  it.     Listen  : 

Cousin  Teresa  takes  out  Caesar, 
Fido,  Jock,  and  the  big  borzoi. 

A  lilting,  catchy  sort  of  refrain,  you  see,  and  big- 
drum  business  on  the  two  syllables  of  bor-zoi.  It  is 
immense."  It  was  :  to  the  surprise  of  his  family  the 
song  caught  on,  the  name  of  Harrowcluff  became 
more  and  more  famous  until  at  length,  under  the 
heading  of  "  Merit  in  Literature,"  Colonel  Harrow- 
cluff had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  his  son's  name  in 
the  List  of  Honours.     But  it  wasn't  Basset. 

The  story  of  Cyprian,  who  preferred  to  accompany 
his  aunt  on  a  shopping  expedition  without  a  hat  and 
was  seen  by  her  at  intervals  to  be  deliberately  pocket- 
ing the  money  for  various  articles  from  buyers  who 
mistook  him  for  a  salesman,  is  in  the  best  Reginald 
manner,  as  is  the  story  of  the  young  man  who,  having 
gambled  all  his  own  possessions,  staked  his  mother's 
peerless  cook  and  lost. 

The  Story-Teller,  in  which  Munro  shows  his  complete 
understanding  of  children,  ought  to  prove  invaluable 
to  those  who  want  to  know  how  to  hold  the  attention 
of  small  boys  and  girls  :  the  flick  of  the  satiric  whip 
at  the  end  of  the  story  when  the  aunt  stigmatises  the 
stranger's  fable  as  "  improper  "  is  delightful. 

"  '  Unhappy  woman,'  said  the  bachelor  to  himself, 
'  for  the  next  six  months  or  so   those  children  will 


326  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

assail  her  in  public  with  demands  for  an  improper 
story.' " 

There  are  tales  of  wolves  (a  favourite  animal  with 
"  Saki  "),  elks,  hunters,  boar-pigs,  whitebait,  honey- 
buzzards,  a  most  hilarious  picture  of  a  cow  in  a  draw- 
ing-room, and  of  two  Turkestan  camels  climbing 
a  grand  staircase  :  one  begins  to  think  that  "  Saki " 
must  have  felt  some  affinity  with  one  of  his  own 
characters,  an  artist  who  always  represented  some 
well-kno^vn  place  in  London,  fallen  into  decay, 
populated  with  wild  fauna.  "  Giraffes  drinking  at 
the  fountain  pools,  Trafalgar  Square,"  "  Vultures 
attacking  dying  camel  in  Upper  Berkeley  Street," 
"  Hyaenas  asleep  in  Euston  Station,"  and  "  Sand- 
grouse  roosting  on  the  Albert  Memorial  "  are  some  of 
his  happiest  titles,  and  it  is  not  hard  to  think  of 
"  Saki  "  visualising  some  of  his  scenes  in  much  the 
same  way.  His  love  for  animals  was  great,  his  love 
of  the  incongruous  even  greater  :  a  combination  of 
these  two  passions  would  account  for  much  of  the 
merriment  his  animal  stories  cause  us. 

His  last  book,  The  Toys  of  Peace.,  published  post- 
humously, is  not  so  sustainedly  successful  as  his 
earlier  collections  of  short  stories.  He  was  so  ardent 
a  soldier  that  writing  for  The  Morning  Post,  The  West- 
minster Gazette,  and  The  Bystander  must  have  seemed 
but  toying  with  life  in  comparison  with  the  great 
vocation  to  which  he  was  suddenly  called  to  con- 
secrate his  time.  His  first  story,  ironic  as  ever,  shows 
us  parents  of  a  pacific  turn  of  mind  endeavouring  to 
divert  their  children's  taste  from  blood-lust  to  the 
excitements  of  peace,  from  guns  to  ploughs,  from 
toy  soldiers  to  toy  city  councillors,  by  giving  them 
figures  supposed  to  represent  Mrs  Hemans,  John  Stuart 
Mill,  and  models  of  the  Manchester  branch  of  the 


THE  HUMOUR  OF  "  SAKI  "^  327 

Y.W.C.A.  The  result  cdn  easily  be  guessed.  "  Peep- 
ing in  through  the  doorway  Harvey  observed  that 
the  municipal  dustbin  had  been  pierced  with  holes 
to  acconunodate  the  muzzles  of  imaginary  cannon, 
J.  S.  Mill  had  been  dipped  in  red  ink  and  apparently 
stood  for  Marshal  Saxe. 

"  Louis  orders  his  troops  to  surround  the  Y.W.C.A. 
and  seize  the  lot  of  them.  '  Once  back  at  the  Louvre 
and  the  girls  are  mine,'  he  exclaims.  '  We  must 
use  Mrs  Hemans  again  for  one  of  the  girls  :  she  says 
"  Never  !  "  and  stabs  Marshal  Saxe  to  the  heart.'  " 

As  I  said  before,  '*  Saki's  "  understanding  of  the 
psychology  of  childhood  is  profound.  His  old  trick  of 
happy  simile  returns  with  as  good  effect  as  ever,  but 
on  rarer  occasions. 

"  Nowadays  the  Salvation  Army  are  spruce  and 
jaunty  and  flamboyantly  decorative,  like  a  geranium 
bed  with  religious  convictions." 

His  brain  never  lost  its  cunning  in  coining  perfectly 
fitting  names  :  "  Eleanor  Bope  "  brings  before  us  at 
once  a  realistic  picture  of  the  aunt  with  freak  ideas 
about  "  peace  "  toys.  "  Crispina  Umberleigh  "  could 
only  be  a  woman  of  martinet  habits,  bom  to  sit  in 
judgment.  "  Octavian  Ruttle  "  could  not  be  other 
than  amiable ;  you  would  expect  Waldo  Orpington 
to  be  frivolous  and  chirrup  at  drawing-room  concerts  ; 
we  know  exactly  the  kind  of  novel  to  expect  from 
Mark  Mellowkent,  while  the  home  life  of  Mr  and  Mrs 
James  Gurtleberry  can  be  guessed  without  much 
explanation. 

How  far  it  is  permissible  to  search  for  a  serious 
design  in  the  work  of  a  humourist  it  is  hard  to  say, 
but  one  story  so  far  stands  out  from  the  rest  of  his 
work  as  epitomising  his  attitude  to  life,  that  one  is 
tempted  to  base  a  theory  on  the  ideas  contained  in  it. 


328  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

Why,  we  ask  ourselves,  does  "  Saki  "  so  frequently 
have  recourse  to  hoaxes  for  his  plots  ?  Why  does  he 
take  an  almost  indecent  delight  in  those  of  his  char- 
acters who  are  fluent  liars,  who  exercise  their  imagina- 
tion at  everybody  else's  expense  ?  The  reason,  I 
think,  will  be  found  in  The  Mappined  Life,  which 
might  almost  have  been  written  by  Tchehov. 

"  We  are  able  to  live  our  unreal,  stupid  little  lives 
on  our  particular  Mappin  terrace,  and  persuade  our- 
selves  that   we   really   are   untrammelled   men   and 
women  leading  a  reasonable  existence  in  a  reasonable 
sphere  :    we  are  tranunelled  by  restrictions  of  income 
and  opportunity  and,  above  all,  by  lack  of  initiative. 
Lack  of  initiative  is  the  thing  that  really  cripples 
one,  and  that  is  where  you  and  I  and  Uncle  James  are 
so  hopelessly  shut  in.     There  are  heaps  of  ways  of 
leading  a  real  existence  without  committing  sensa- 
tional   deeds    of   violence.     It's    the    dreadful    little 
everyday  acts  of  pretended  importance  that  give  the 
Mappin  stamp  to  our  life.     Take  my  case  :   I'm  not  a 
good  dancer,  and  no  one  could  honestly  call  me  good- 
looldng,  but  when  I  go  to  one  of  our  dull  little  local 
dances,  I'm    conventionally    supposed    to    '  have    a 
heavenly  time,'  to  attract  the  ardent  homage  of  the 
local  cavaliers,  and  to  go  home  with  my  head  awhirl 
with  pleasurable  recollections.     As  a  matter  of  fact, 
I've  merely  put  in  some  hours  of  indifferent  dancing, 
drank  some  badly-made  claret-cup,  and  listened  to  an 
enormous   amount   of  laborious   light   conversation. 
A  moonlight   hen-stealing  raid  with  the  merry-eyed 
curate  would  be  infinitely  more  exciting." 

That  is  "  Saki's  "  secret.  Behind  the  mask  of  the 
satirist  and  the  elegant  buffoon  we  can  trace  the 
features  of  one  who  so  loved  life  that  his  affections 
always  swayed  his  more  sober  reason,  of  one  whose 


THE  HUMOUR  OF  "  SAKI  "  329 

favourite  companions  were  the  Reginalds  and  Clovises 
of  this  world,  because  they,  at  least,  could  never 
grow  up  and  worship  at  the  shrine  of  routine. 

"  Saki  "  was  not  only  a  child-lover,  he  was  a  child 
himself,  with  all  the  imagination,  the  irresponsibility 
and  the  harsh  cruelty  of  children  fully  developed  in 
him  :  there  is  nothing  sweet  or  mellow  or  restful 
in  his  genius  :  he  surprises  us  just  as  "  O.  Henry  " 
surprises  us  by  turning  a  complete  somersault  in  his 
last  sentences  after  astonishing  us  with  all  manner 
of  gymnastic  capers  in  each  paragraph  before.  It 
reminds  one  of  music-hall  acrobats  who,  after  taking 
our  breath  away  several  times  during  their  "  turn," 
make  their  adieux  by  performing  some  incredible 
antic  that  leaves  us  too  shattered  even  to  applaud. 

Such  is  the  humour  of  "  Saki,"  which  never  descends 
to  caricature  like  so  much  of  DickenSj  is  never  aimless 
like  that  of  W.  W.  Jacobs,  is  often  bitter  like  his  masters. 
Pope,  Dryden,  Swift,  and  (at  times)  Wilde,  always 
verbally  brilliant,  polished,  and  cold  :  his  exaggera- 
tions are  all  marked  with  a  restraint  which,  of  course, 
makes  them  all  the  more  grotesque  and  mirth - 
provoking  :  his  accents  are  as  precise  as  those  of  the 
most  prim  governess  or  the  most  literal  Scotsman  : 

"  *  There  is  a  goat  in  my  bedroom,'  observed  the 
bishop. 

"  '  Really,'  I  said,  '  another  survivor  ?  I  thought 
all  the  other  goats  are  done  for.' 

"  '  This  particular  goat  is  done  for,'  he  said,  '  it  is 
being  devoured  by  a  leopard  at  the  present  moment. 
That  is  why  I  left  the  room  :  some  animals  resent 
being  watched  while  they  are  eating.'  " 

It  is  here  that  he  differs  from  Stephen  Leacock, 
his  transatlantic  counterpart  :  both  are  prolific  in 
rerbal  felicities,  but  Leacock  is  far  less  subtle  :  where 


330  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

"  Saki  "  is  giving  full  play  to  a  wonderfully  developed 
imagination,  Leacock  is  confined  by  the  bounds  of  his 
terrestial  fancy  ;  where  "  Saki  "  soars  into  the  highest 
regions  of  the  truly  comic,  Leacock  is  content  with  the 
slow,  earth-bom  e  car  of  Parody ;  the  barbs  of  irony 
which  "  Saki "  employed  were  aimed  at  foolish 
humanity  straying  pitiably  from  paths  where  they 
might  be  happy,  while  Leacock's  sarcastic  darts 
are  levelled  at  a  particular  failing  of  foolish  "  cranks." 
Leacock  has  intermittent  flashes  of  great  brilliance, 
but  his  intellect  is  that  of  a  highly  talented  professor ; 
"  Saki,"  like  "O.  Henry,"  rises  quite  frequently  beyond 
cleverness  into  that  inexplicable,  rarefied  atmosphere 
where  only  the  genius  can  survive.  Like  "  O.  Henrj'," 
and  only  too  many  other  geniuses,  he  escaped  recog- 
nition in  his  lifetime  :  "  Saki  "  had  only  an  eclectic 
public  :  but  the  passion  of  the  devoted  few  always 
keeps  the  reputation  of  great  men  burning  until  the 
time  comes  for  posterity  to  acknowledge  the  master, 
and  there  is  no  doubt  whatever  that  the  time  will 
come  when  "  Saki  "  will  be  given  his  niche  among  the 
great  humourists. 


rx 

WOMEN 

THERE  is  no  subject  so  constantly  in  man's 
thoughts  as  some  member  of  the  opposite 
sex.  Wherever  two  or  three  men  are  collected 
together  gossiping,  in  the  end  some  generalisation 
about  women  will  set  them  off :  this  is  not  to  say  that 
Einglishmen,  as  a  race,  talk  so  incessantly  about  them 
as  Frenchmen  do  :  nor  do  I  suggest  that  men  give  the 
same  amount  of  time  to  talking  about  women  as 
women  do  about  men  :  it  is  rather  in  his  thoughts  that 
women  take  precedence  with  a  man.  He  is  able  to 
concentrate  on  his  work  or  his  games  when  occasion 
demands,  but  in  his  leisure  moments,  at  the  theatre, 
in  church,  in  the  train,  in  the  streets,  at  fashionable 
restaurants,  he  likes  to  delight  his  eyes  with  the  sight 
of  pretty  women  :  in  books  he  gluts  himself  with 
vicarious  love-making,  he  wallows  in  sentimental 
affection  for  fictitious  heroines.  If  he  is  unmarried  he 
is  always  more  or  less  in  love  :  if  he  is  married  he 
is  either  preposterously  in  love  with  his  own  wife  or 
some  one  else.  All  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  most 
women  make  men  miserable,  that  men  despise  them 
as  a  sex,  that  as  companions  their  own  sex  is  in  nearly 
every  way  superior.  All  bachelors  suspect  their  married 
friends  because  they  unite  invariably  in  urging  them  to 
do  as  they  have  done  :  whereas  no  successful  barrister, 
journalist,  or  prince  of  commerce  ever  yet  did  any- 
thing but  try  to  put  off  all  his  acquaintances  from 
taking  up  the  profession  in  which  he  has  made  good. 

331 


382  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

Women  are  in  so  many  cases  a  fascinating  mystery 
or  a  horrible  enigma  that  it  is  with  a  sense  of  having 
discovered  the  sesame  to  their  nature  that  we  pick  up 
a  betrayal  of  the  sex  by  one  of  their  number.^ 

Womeriy  published  by  Martin  Seeker,  by  an  anony- 
mous author,  is  one  of  the  most  provocative  books 
I  have  ever  read.  True  or  not,  it  is  good  that  man, 
sentimental  man,  should  learn  what  one  woman 
thinks  of  her  sex.  First  there  is  her  attitude  to  the 
war,  commonly  designated  as  "  splendid."  There 
is  no  question  in  the  author's  mind  that  the  women 
liked  the  war :  it  immediately  gratified  their  in- 
stinctive hunger  for  emotion :  "  not  Lord  Kitchener, 
but  the  women  of  England,  made  the  new  armies." 
"  It  was  the  women  who  sent  the  men  out  to  fight  by 
cajolery,  bullying,  ridicule  .  .  .  the  woman  pacifist 
has  yet  to  be  born.  Having  sent  the  man  to  fight,  the 
women  found  that  England  was  theirs.  War  became 
glorious  fun  :  it  was  an  excuse  for  wearing  uniforms 
and  acquiring  power  :  it  gave  birth  to  a  sex-hatred 
which  may  now  be  permanent.  Owing  to  her  lack 
of  imagination,  the  average  woman  is  unable  to  have 
anything  more  than  a  shallow  sympathy  with  suffer- 
ing, principally  physical  suffering.  Just  as  they 
dote  on  physical  strength  and  fear  intellectual  ability, 
so  do  they  understand,  to  a  certain  degree,  wounds 
of  the  body  without  being  able  to  realise  the  more 
poisonous  and  lasting  wounds  of  the  mind.  The 
emotional  excitements  which  every  woman  must  have, 
have  led  to  an  amazing  moral  laxity  during  the  last 
five  years.  They  are  much  more  completely  and 
continuously  sensual  than  men,  living  as  they  do  in 
a  marvelling  delirium  of  the  senses  :   life  has  become 

^  I  ftm  only,  of  oourae,  gaeesing  when  I  atiributo  ths  authorahip  of 
Women  to  a  woman. 


WOMEN  338 

a  precarious  business  at  best :  we  are  all  fatalists  : 
consequently,  we  have  snatched  at  happiness  and 
secured,  in  too  many  cases,  misery  :  this  is  the  out- 
come of  the  '  splendid  '  behaviour  of  women."  So 
much  for  the  thesis  of  Part  I. 

In  Part  II  we  are  told  something  of  the  character- 
istics of  women.  There  is  the  love  of  physical 
strength  mentioned  above,  the  faculty  of  imitative- 
ness  .  .  .  and  the  passion  of  cruelty  :  at  all  costs  a 
girl  will  conform  to  the  prevailing  fashion,  however 
unsuited  she  may  be  :  in  the  principal  affair  of  their 
lives,  the  business  of  love,  they  are  past  masters  : 
they  sedulously  cultivate  the  myth  that  all  women  are 
mysterious  in  order  to  cover  the  nakedness  of  their 
souls  and  to  render  themselves  more  attractive  :  that  is 
why  a  woman  instinctively  dreads  a  man  with  brains  : 
he  may,  at  any  moment,  probe  the  veil  and  mortally 
wound  her  legendary  self,  "  the  offspring  of  vanity  out 
of  vacuum."  Just  as  the  dominant  interest  in  all 
novels  written  by  women  is  sex  so  is  sex  the  obsession 
of  all  women.  Novel-writing  is  the  outcome  of  re- 
pressed sexual  emotions. 

Part  III  is  devoted  to  the  question  of  "  Why  Men 
Love  Women."  Leaving  out  of  account  all  the  minor 
stages  in  love-making,  it  is  interesting  to  read  that 
"  affairs "  with  unmarried  women  subside  more 
normally  than  those  with  married  women.  The 
married  woman,  having  endured  a  disappointment, 
having  had  distaste  aroused,  and  having  had  de- 
veloped within  her  a  desire  for  revenge  upon  the  cause 
of  her  disappointment,  becomes  more  quickly  reck- 
less. She  counts  the  cost  less  :  she  knows  as  nobody 
else  can  do  the  sweets  of  stolen  intercourse.  Men 
like  something  stable.  They  wish  to  feel  that  love 
and  company  await  them  through  life.     The  happily- 


884  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

married  man  exults  in  a  condition  for  which  his  heart 
has  all  his  life  secretly  yearned.  There  comes  a  time 
in  the  life  of  man  when  he  can  no  longer  endure 
amorous  uncertainty.  The  game  has  lost  its  first 
savour.  He  wants  to  be  sure  of  one  woman  for  ever. 
It  is  a  dream.  All  men  of  character  are  extremely 
lonely  and  long  for  rest  :  that  is  their  first  desire  : 
that  is  what  prepares  them  for  love.  Apart  from  very 
exceptional  men,  the  sexual  instinct  can  be  appeased 
without  love.  In  ordinary  courtship  the  sexual  ap- 
peal obviously  counts  for  a  good  deal,  because  most 
people  have  nothing  to  give  in  marriage  but  the 
sexual  relation  :  they  have  do  spiritual  communion. 
With  the  best  types  of  men  the  sex  relation  is  second- 
ary to  the  relation  of  the  spirit.  They  ride  for  ever, 
seeking  understanding  and  sympathy.  To  rest  and  to 
confess,  to  be  made  whole  and  to  be  comforted, 
to  be  understood,  to  have  a  wife  who,  knowing  all 
our  weakness,  has  yet  the  strength  to  love  us  and  to  be 
proud  of  oiu"  love,  these  are  the  love  aspirations  of 
men.  They  are  rarely  more  than  aspirations,  because 
women  also  require  comforting  :  and  when  women 
appeal  to  men  for  comforting,  the  breakfast  must  have 
been  intolerably  bad,  or  the  day  quite  too  distressingly 
exacting,  if,  during  the  first  year  of  married  life, 
married  sympathy  is  not  forthcoming.  Afterwards, 
no  doubt,  with  puzzled  disappointment  upon  both  sides 
drying  up  the  wells  of  tenderness  and  longing,  both  are 
harsh.  Neither  then,  perhaps,  struggles  to  adjust  the 
differing  rhythms  of  mood.  But  at  first,  when  the  flush 
of  rapture  is  still  warm,  only  inarticulateness,  only 
cowardice,  can  account  for  the  failure  of  unity  in  mood. 
There  is  no  peace,  because  men  and  women  alike  are 
egoists  when  they  are  in  emotional  conflict. 

It  is  not  through  the  senses,  first  of  all,  that  man 


WOMEN  335 

loves — if  he  is  capable  of  loving.  It  is  through 
imagination  and  humour  and  pity  and  admiration. 

See  the  exchanged  glance  of  true  lovers — ^what  is 
there  ?  On  the  girl's  side  a  glance  for  reassurance, 
quick,  side-long :  on  the  man's  side  a  puzzled 
questioning  scrutiny.  He  suddenly  realises  just 
exactly  how  frightened  of  her  he  is.  He  will  never 
stop  being  afraid,  because  she  is  physically  weaker 
than  himself.  As  long  as  women  are  physically  the 
inferior  sex  they  will  be  compelled  to  be  mysterious. 
Their  determination  may  be  much  stronger  than  that 
of  men.  It  is  certainly  more  unquiet  and  assertive. 
But  it  can  only  be  combated  by  physical  force  :  and 
physical  force  is  the  one  weapon  which  most  men 
will  never  apply  to  their  wives.  They  will  be  strangers 
to  each  other  for  the  rest  of  their  lives  ;  the  lover 
will  stand  regarding  the  woman  he  loves,  seeing 
through  her  ;  seeing  her  vanities,  her  angers,  her  dis- 
comforts and  triumphs,  cajoleries  and  inexpressible 
reliefs.  He  sees  her  a  child  and  a  woman,  a  coward 
and  a  heroine,  a  human  heart  that  lives  in  a  world  of 
illusion  .  .  .  but  he  must  never  tell :  women  are 
far  too  serious  to  endure  the  true  picture.  They  have 
too  much  of  the  "  heroic  "  in  their  temperament. 
To  see  life  and  character  clear,  and  to  laugh  without 
cruelty  or  pain,  is  a  power  denied  to  all  but  two  or 
three  women.  If  it  were  a  widespread  gift  we  should 
all  laugh  ourselves  into  apoplexies. 

"  Women  in  Love "  is  the  subject  of  Part  IV. 
We  are  first  shown  the  phenomenon  of  hate  following 
hard  upon  love,  of  married  men  being  "  caught  on  the 
rebound,"  of  very  young  men  crying  off  on  the  day 
after  a  proposal  and  acceptance.  All  men  have  a 
deep-seated  conviction  that  women  are  tricksters. 
Distrust  of  or  a  contempt  for  all  women  is  more 


886  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

common  than  genuine  love  for  one  woman  :  this  is 
because  she  has  made  the  sexual  act  her  lifelong  pre- 
occupation. To  a  man  it  is  a  moment  of  dread  and 
anxiety,  a  moment  of  unsettlement — almost  of  de- 
moralisation .  .  .  there  comes  brutality  between 
married  people  :  the  impulse  to  cruelty  towards  the 
beloved  is  common  :  in  women  it  often  takes  the  form 
of  a  frigidity  that  is  expressively  known  as  "  sulking." 

Think  of  the  novels  women  most  admire  :  they  are 
novels  of  feminine  surrender  :  they  are  novels  in 
which  the  heroine  at  last  succumbs  to  the  urgent 
wooing  of  the  hero,  or  the  desires  of  her  own  physical 
nature  :  among  modem  novels  it  is  the  erotic  tale 
that  finds  most  readers  among  women  :  any  novel 
which  contains  a  marriage  at  first  left  unconsummated, 
with  the  ugly  intrigues  of  the  wife  to  indicate  her 
willingness  for  cohabitation  forming  its  subsequent 
motif,  is  infallibly  a  success  with  women :  their 
savage  curiosity  in  following  the  theme  is  unmis- 
takable :  it  is  an  index  to  their  predilections  :  a 
study  of  marriage  which  does  not  dwell  on  the  physical 
relation  is  to  them  intolerable.  To  the  man,  then, 
the  period  of  love-making  is  a  time  of  emotional 
turmoil,  of  active  distress  :  to  the  woman  it  is  a  time 
of  engrossing  delight  and  triumph.  Later  they  are 
always  trying  to  import  into  their  too  restricted 
imaginings  some  of  that  excitement  of  which  they  can 
get  so  little  in  celibate  or  monogamous  life.  That  is 
why  women  thrive  on  crises.  When  she  no  longer  is 
jealous  of  her  husband,  she  no  longer  loves,  which 
means  that  she  loves  another  man. 

In  the  act  of  love  itself  women  are  more  sensual 
than  men.  She  is  at  peace,  half-swooning,  absorbed 
in  sensation.  It  is  for  men  to  think,  to  regret,  to 
fear,  with  a  comical  mixture  of  startling  associations 


WOMEN  337 

and  questionings.  It  is  the  case  that  many  men, 
if  they  are  inexperienced  in  love,  are  astounded  at 
the  abandonment  of  the  beloved.  They  are  excited 
and  exultant,  but  they  are  ashamed  and  afraid  : 
the  woman  is  neither  ashamed  nor  afraid.  Love  is 
really  and  actually  woman's  whole  existence.  De- 
frauded by  some  dreadful  accident  of  a  love  upon 
which  he  had  set  his  heart,  a  man  continues  soberly 
to  perform  his  task  in  hfe.  He  goes  from  day  to  day, 
wearily,  until  passion  cools,  and  his  knowledge  of 
things  inexpressible  deepens  and  grows  more  clear. 
He  is  full  of  grief :  but  his  soul  remains  unscathed. 
Though  the  endurances  of  the  hours  be  indescribably 
those  of  agony  unappeasable,  yet  he  retains  his  hold 
upon  other  realities  and  is  reinforced  by  his  own 
steadfastness.  If  a  woman  be  defrauded  of  the  love 
she  covets  it  is  as  though  she  were  at  sea,  weeping 
and  helpless,  in  contrary  winds  :  she  may  long  cling 
despairingly  to  the  illusion  that  all  is  not  lost :  her 
morbid  fancy  may  continue  to  picture  secret  joys 
which  will  never  be  hers.  Finally,  anythmg  may 
happen.  She  is  no  longer  controlled  by  habit  or 
obedience  to  the  laws  of  society. 

In  the  last  section  of  the  book  we  are  asked  to 
consider  "  The  Best  of  Both  Worlds." 

The  modern  girl  has  not  changed  in  essentials  : 
the  only  alteration  lies  in  the  use  of  fresh  armaments 
and  the  development  of  a  new  offensive  :  the  decay 
of  religious  acceptance  has  led  to  a  rise  in  the  respect 
given  to  intellectual  attainments  :  her  aggressiveness 
is  a  bluff :  she  still  strives  to  impress  the  male  ; 
there  is  no  real,  though  much  pretended,  equahty  : 
there  is  bound  always  to  be  constraint  in  intellectual 
relations  between  men  and  women,  due  to  the  fact 
that  a  woman  is  incapable  of  thinking  originally,  that 

Y 


838  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

she  is  incapable  of  thinking  or  arguing  disinterestedly, 
from  pure  love  of  truth,  that  she  is  always  half- 
consciously  and  guiltily  bluffing  herself  and  trying  to 
interest  her  auditor  in  her  own  ego. 

Women  demand  education,  not  for  its  own  sake,  but 
rather  as  if  it  were  a  new  costume  :  the  sense  that 
marriage  awaits  them  robs  them  of  incentive  to  work 
at  a  task  for  which  they  have  no  natural  impulse  : 
that  is  why  they  are  intellectually  unambitious : 
but  all  women  cannot  hope  to  marry  :  they  will  have 
to  adapt  themselves  if  the  returned  soldier  adopts  a 
truculent  attitude  to  the  women  who  try  to  oust  him 
from  jobs.  But  from  those  women  who  will  be 
unable  to  adapt  themselves  we  may  expect  a  fierce  sex 
war  to  begin.  They  will  find  that  they^are  absolutely 
dependent  for  moral  support  upon  the  other  sex. 
"  On  the  whole,"  one  hears,  "  women  are  admirable 
workers,  but  never  capable  of  continuous  self- 
reliance.  They  go  to  pieces  suddenly :  they  cannot 
take  a  blow :  they  lack  physical  stability :  they 
become  weak,  vicious,  and  despondent  when  con- 
sideration for  them  is  removed.  At  all  times  and  in 
all  circumstances,  they  are  predominantly  sexual. 
They  cannot  be  both  masters  and  mistresses. 
Triumph  in  the  sex  war  for  women  would  mean 
sterility  in  all  the  arts  and  enterprises  of  the  modern 
world.  Compromise  is  the  only  solution :  nature 
will  be  too  strong  for  women  :  the  lack  of  power  to 
create  is  due  to  physical  causes  which  cannot  be 
overcome  :  all  efforts  to  escape  from  the  consequences 
of  it  are  the  workings  of  hysteria,  the  frustration  of 
the  sexual  impulse." 

Such,  in  essence,  is  the  main  contention  of  this 
remarkable  book.  Exaggerated,  bitter,  and  lacking 
in  humour,  it  may  be ;  but,  at  least,  it  tends  to  send 


WOMEN  339 

the  reader  back  to  first  principles  to  decide  quite  what 
woman  means  to  him.  It  is  inevitable  that  one  should 
take  the  standpoint  of  a  man  in  this  case.  In  early 
youth  we  discover  how  comfortable  and  necessary 
to  our  happiness  are  a  mother's  arms,  a  mother's 
lap,  and  a  mother's  bosom.  The  schoolboy  finds  to 
his  horror,  a  little  later,  that  there  are  things  which 
he  cannot  tell  his  mother  simply  because  she  cannot 
understand  his  point  of  view.  If  he  has  sisters  he 
will  be  horrified  at  a  woman's  code  of  honour  :  the 
years  pass  and,  as  a  prefect  at  school  or  an  under- 
graduate, he  will  fall  in  love  with  many  women,  all 
much  older  than  himself.  This  love  will  be  platonic 
and  pure  :  he  may  easily,  at  this  period,  feel  that  he 
has  contaminated  himself  beyond  all  hope  of  re- 
demption by  having  illicit  relations  with  girls  of  his 
own  age  in  a  lower  station  of  life.  He  will  never 
quite  recover  from  this  feeling  if  he  falls.  Earlier  in 
life  it  satisfied  him  to  kiss  girls  at  dances  or  at  pic- 
nics .  .  .  now  he  may  be  sexually  aroused  and  given  to 
furtive  low  bursts  of  passion  at  irregular  rare  intervals. 
Not  many  men,  however,  succumb  to  this  sort  of  temp- 
tation. But  the  next  stage  is  common  to  nearly  every 
man  :  suddenly,  without  warning,  he  will  find  that  one 
girl  so  attracts  him  that  he  will  be  acutely  miserable 
whenever  he  is  parted  from  her,  exceedingly  jealous 
if  she  casts  a  favourable  eye  on  any  other  of  his  sex  : 
he  will  blurt  out  a  proposal  of  marriage,  and,  to  his 
amazement,  she  will  accept  him  :  and  in  the  months 
that  pass  before  they  are  married  he  will  be  still  more 
astonished  at  her  calmness  and  lack  of  passion.  At 
length  comes  the  nuptial  day,  and  he  will,  for  a  little 
time,  find  the  changed  conditions  a  little  arduous,  a 
little  disappointing  :  then  he  will  settle  down  for 
good  or  ill.     And  here  comes  the  great  divergence 


840  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

between  the  happy  and  the  unhappy.  In  a  great 
number  of  cases  each  of  the  two  parties  will  satisfy 
the  other's  wants,  physically,  mentally,  and  spiritually: 
they  will  fuse  excellently  and  merge  into  one  spirit, 
one  body :  life  will  become  a  magnificent  thing,  and 
each  will  strengthen  the  other  to  bear  any  adversity 
.  .  .  but  many  marriages  are  not  made  like  this,  in 
heaven  :  little  rifts  within  the  lute  begin  to  appear  : 
one  of  the  two  begins  to  "  nag,"  the  other  to  sulk  : 
they  shut  themselves  up  into  watertight  compart- 
ments, and  existence  becomes  a  misery.  How  to 
avoid  such  a  catastrophe  is  one  of  the  most  necessary 
things  in  life  to  learn.  "  By  mutual  understanding  and 
forbearance  "  comes  the  answer  pat.  But  are  there 
not  instances  where  the  husband  or  wife  scents  in 
the  other  a  determination  wilfully  to  misunderstand, 
wantonly  to  go  his  or  her  own  way  ?  There  are  secrets 
in  a  woman's  nature  which  no  power,  not  even  a 
good  man's  love,  can  wrest  from  her  :  there  are  com- 
partments in  a  man's  heart  which  he  feels  that  even 
his  best  beloved  would  only  defile  if  they  'were  laid 
bare  to  her  view.  It  is  in  spite  of  obvious  weaknesses 
and  vices  that  we  love  one  another  :  Shakespeare's 
"  Sonnets  to  the  Dark  Lady  "  are  a  wonderful  revela- 
tion of  the  power  of  love  to  destroy  the  critical  faculties. 
Even  when  we  realise  that  we  have  mistaken  a  harpy 
for  an  angel  we  are  unable  to  escape  from  the  toils  : 
the  married  man  is  like  a  cat :  he  cannot  contemplate 
change  with  any  feeling  but  profound  aversion : 
that  is  why  so  many  quite  rational  beings  submit  to 
being  "  hen-pecked  "  by  their  wives  when  they  would 
die  rather  than  endure  an  insult  from  their  fellow- 
man.  That  is  why  one  reads  of  lurid  tragedies  in  the 
newspapers  of  men  who  have  been  driven  to  murder 
other  men  who  have  attempted  to  interfere  in  their 


WOMEN  841 

domestic  affairs  by  trying  to  capture  their  wives' 
affections.  Happily-married  couples  more  nearly  ap- 
proach man's  highest  conception  of  heaven  than  they 
themselves  can  ever  realise.  Others,  less  fortunate, 
gaze  hungrily  at  these  ideal  soul-companionships 
and  curse  their  own  lot :  at  any  rate,  no  hell  can  ever 
compare  with  the  ever-gnawing  hopeless  longing  of  a 
man  who  loves  his  wife,  knowing  that  whatever  he 
does  she  will  have  no  love  for  him.  He  seeks  consola- 
tion in  drink,  in  sport,  in  male  companionship,  even  in 
other  women,  but  he  never  finds  contentment,  but 
wanders,  half-crazy,  his  outlook  on  life  poisoned,  his 
early  promise  of  genius  or  talent  or  business  capacity 
ruined,  a  mere  husk  of  a  man,  fit  only  to  be  scrapped 
— and  all  through  the  fault  of  one  woman.  There 
is  nothing  to  be  gained  by  pretence.  All  men  realise, 
even  if  they  refuse  to  confess  it,  that  they  are  com- 
pletely under  the  thumb  of  the  other  sex,  once  they 
have  given  their  hearts  away.  It  is  possible  to 
eliminate  the  whole  trouble  if  you  refuse  ever  to  have 
any  dealings  with  them,  but  once  married,  there  is  no 
hope  for  you,  if  you  make  a  mistake.  The  use, 
therefore,  of  a  book  like  Women  would  seem  to  be 
that  it  should  make  men  pause  before  sliding  into 
matrimony,  before  choosing  their  life-mate.  It 
would  seem  to  advocate  later  marriages,  to  suggest 
that  we  should  arrive  at  years  of  discretion  before 
allowing  ourselves  to  succumb  to  charms  which  may 
only  be  temporary.  We  are  told  that  there  is  much 
wrong  with  the  marriage  and  divorce  laws  :  there 
certainly  is,  but  there  is  far  more  wrong  with  the 
attitude  with  which  men  regard  women  and  women 
regard  men.  This  is  an  extremely  difficult  age : 
it  was  enough  in  the  past  to  seize  your  woman  and 
mould  her  to  your  requirements  by   brutality  and 


342  BOOKS  AND  THEIR  WRITERS 

bullying :  woman  has  become  emancipated  :  she 
is  now  man's  equal  and  ought  to  be  a  far  finer  creature  : 
at  present  there  are  not  lacking  instances  of  her 
abusing  her  new- won  privileges.  She  understands 
being  beaten  :  not  always  does  she  understand  the 
man  who  prefers  to  recognise  her  rights  and  give  her 
the  chance  to  mould  herself.  She  regards  such  a 
husband  as  lacking  in  conviction,  if  not  in  passion  : 
the  truth  is  that  the  time  has  not  arrived  when  the 
man  can  lay  all  his  cards  on  the  table  and  expect  the 
woman  to  know  enough  of  the  game  to  play  fairly. 
Her  code  is  so  entirely  different  from  his  :  man  so 
idealises  the  other  sex  that  he  is  blind  to  its  deficiencies 
until  it  is  too  late,  and  then,  horribly  tortured,  turns 
cynic  or  reverts  to  a  state  of  primitive  savagery. 
It  is  a  horrible  impasse,  for  this  is  what  happens  : 

If  a  couple  are  mutually  happy  there  is  no  need  for 
argument :  their  case  is  settled.  If  the  man's  ardour 
cools  while  his  wife  remains  faithful  and  loving,  he 
may  form  sporadic  illegal  unions,  but  he  will  eventually 
return  to  his  wife  if  he  finds  that  his  cruel  thought- 
lessness is  driving  her  to  despair  :  not  only  will  he 
return,  but  his  love  will  be  re-bom  through  the  agency 
of  pity  ;  but  if  it  is  the  wife's  passion  that  cools  while 
the  man  remains  faithful,  there  is  the  devil  to  pay. 
For  she  will  seek  an  outlet  for  her  thwarted  desires 
elsewhere,  the  husband  will  become  a  prey  to  jealousy 
and  be  driven  almost  mad  ...  he  may  plead  with 
her  never  so  rationally,  abase  himself  before  her  never 
so  pathetically  in  a  way  that  would  wTing  tears  from 
a  devil's  eyes,  but  she  will  pursue  her  wanton  way 
regardless  of  all  his  misery,  stony-hearted  to  his  plea 
for  pity,  more  cruel  and  icy  than  any  villainous 
inquisitor  of  fiction,  more  malignly  mischievous  even 
than  laso. 


WOMEN  343 

It  would  be  well  if  men  were  educated  to  differen- 
tiate the  true  from  the  false  :  a  woman's  whole  early- 
training  is  spent  in  learning  to  sum  up  a  man's 
qualities.  Man  goes  into  the  race  blind  and  handi- 
capped through  ignorance  :  it  isn't  fair,  and  no  amount 
of  reading  novels  or  juggling  with  marriage  laws  can 
make  it  so. 


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